My quest of the Arab horse

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Fred M. Young
Collection

Stcenbqck memorial Library

Sleenboc^t Memoilal Lhnty

University of Wisconsin - MadisW)

550 Babcock Drive

Madison. Wl 53706-1298

S-'B-A

5.811

» ' •

(

Slo7

^I^Ui'^i

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

Sbeikh Achmct Haffez. 'My Bedouin Brotlier," the diplomatic
ruler oC the Auezeh BedoulUH.

Thla photograph was taken by the Hod. J. B. Jackson, the
flrat Amerlcao Consul In Aleppo. In 1906. It shows the dl3-
tlD«uiahed old diplomat with a beard grown since our vlait In
ISOfi; It also reveals the medal Irom the Sultan at Turkey.

Sisenbock Memorial Librafy
University of Wisconsin - fwladison

550 BabcoGk Drwe
ltodteon.WI 53T06-1293

MY QUEST OF THE
ARAB HORSE

BY

HOMER DAVENPORT

iV*?.*'W-

NEW YORK

B. W. DODGE & COMPANY

1909

Copyright, 1909, by
B. W. DODGE & COMPANY

Registered at Stationers^ Hall, London
(All Rights Reserved)

Printed in the United States of America

dedicated to
My Dauohteb Mildbed

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGB

Preface ix

CHAPTER

I An Oregon Arab and What It Led to i

II Procuring the Irad^: and the Start for

THE Desert 9

III The Sultan's Stables 19

IV The Sultan of Turkey 28

V From Constantinople to Antioch 50

VI Antioch to Aleppo 61

VII Akmet Haffez and the War Mare yy

VIII The War Mare Greets the Desert 90

IX We Feast with the Anezeh and Become
Better Acquainted — Inspection and
Purchase of Horses 105

X An Important Ceremony in Which I Was
One of the Principals — A Circassian
Village, with a Visit to the Governor,
and What Befell Sheikh Ali 123

XI As TO Dogs and as to One Dog in Par-
ticular 136

XII The Meeting with Hashem Bey^ the

Great Sheikh of the Desert 150

XIII Starting on the Return Journey and
Some Oriental Bargaining — The Begin-
ning OF THE Story of the Mare 167

[ix]

TABLE OF COXTEXTS

pAfcMA AS1> His HOKSES I75

XV Wt Sat Faxemth. to Axiqt Haitez axu
fjTAinr p«i THE Coast — ^^he Pmidc cr the

ECFHKATES'*' COMiS TO Us AT LjkST AXB

Meets Hex Two Soss 184

XVI What Oxe Mat Oteklook or the Ship-
ment OF Horses — ^\Ve Leate the Otto-
man Empire axd Exter Essextial Part
OF It at Least, Although Scrrouxikd
BT Spies 197

XVII Naples and Some of the Misfortunes
WHICH Overtook Us There — America at
Last 210

XVIII Of Said Abdallah and His Notions of

America 225

XIX The Bedouin of the Desert^ His Son and
His Daughter, His Cattle and the
Stranger That Is Within His Gates. ., 233

XX The Arab Horse and His Present Status

— Some Stories from the Desert 247

XXI Various Importations of Arab Horses 268

[x]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Sheikh Akmet Haffez, the Diplomatic Ruler of

THE Anezeh Bedouins Frontispiece

His Excellency Chikeb Bey, the Turkish Am-
bassador II

Letter of Chikeb Bey i6

Abdul Hamid's Favorite Horse 22

The Sultan, Abdul Hamid tj

'*It Was a Rare Treat for the Diplomats When

We Lined Up for Admission to the Palace^' 31

A Royal Eunuch 34

Royal Eunuchs Following the Carriages of the

Princesses 37

Abdul Hamid Is Greeted by His Two Sons at the

Mosque 42

The Sultan Returning from the Mosque 46

Ameen Zaytoun, My Interpreter 53

One of Our Escorts at Antioch 62

Old Methods of Travel Giving Way to New in

Aleppo ^ . . . 74

My Royal Present, Wadduda the War Mare, with

Said Abdalla 83

Nazin Pasha, the Governor of Aleppo %y

Haleb, the Pride of the Anezeh 91

Our First Round of Coffee Under the Great

Sheikh's Tent 103

Our Tent Near the Great Sheikh's Tent Among

THE Anezeh 107

"Just Out of Our Tent Squatted This Young

Anezeh Bedouin'' 11 1

Young Men of the Anezeh Seeing Their First

Cameras 113

The Method of Buying a Horse in the Desert. ... 116

[xi]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

A GoMussA Bedouin of the Sabba Anezeh ii8

"Akmet Haffez Would Join Our Hands Just Be-
fore THE Horse Was Bought" 121

Abeyah's Pedigree 125

Drinking Sour Sheep and Camel's Milk with

Akmet Haffez 127

Sheikh Ali Rashid of the Abo-Gomese 129

A Handsome Bedouin Boy 131

The Supreme Sheikh, Hashem Bey 150

The Sheikh of All Sheikhs 152

Pedigree of Haleb, the Brown Maeghi Sbeyl 154

An Old Warrior of the Anezeh 156

"This Expressionless Old Horseman" 158

Photographed with the Great Sheikhs of the

Fedan Anezeh 161

Haleb's Head 163

Curious Visitors Much Astonished at Watching

Me Sketch 168

Hamrah, a Seglawie-Jedran 169

Our Camp a Few Miles East of Aleppo 173

Euphrates, Full Brother to Hamrah 176

MusoN, Light Gray Stallion 179

Hassan Tasshin Pasha, Exiled in Aleppo 181

Study of Muson — Still, Listening 185

MusoN, the Kehilan Muson 191

Brihem Pasha 195

"No Horses Were More Sensible Than These
While Being Transferred from Steamer to

Barge" 212

Transferring a Horse from Barge to Steamer at

Naples 219

One of the Young Men of the Anezeh 234

An Old Bedouin from the Sabba Anezeh 235

Camels for the Royal Daughters 243

A Seglawie-Jedran of Ibn-ed-Eddara 249

Paring the Frog of the Horse's Foot Out Prior

TO Putting On the Shoe 253

Showing the Solid Steel Shoe with Small Hole
in Center , 254

PREFACE

This book has not been written with any idea
that it will add to literature. Indeed, my pri-
mary object in going to the Syrian desert was
not to see things and then over-describe them in
a book; I had no use for souvenir spoons or
Turkish rugs. My purpose was but for one
thing, and that was to obtain Arab mares and
stallions of absolute purity of blood that I
could trace as coming from the great Anezeh
tribe of Bedouins. That was my fixed idea in
undertaking the journey.

I had been deeply interested in the Arab
horse for many years before I really knew any-
thing about them. Then, w^hen I thought I
had begun to acquire some knowledge of the
breed I found that I was not learning much.
Information about them, obtainable in this
country, was confusing; alleged authorities
contradicted each other in every argument ; the
thing to do, it seemed to me, was to go myself
to the home of the Arab horse and there learn
of him from his master, the Bedouin.

[ xiii ]

PREFACE

The journey thus was undertaken also for
my own education and that it was so successful
(if I may be permitted to say so) is largely
due to aid received from several influential
quarters. I carried with me, for instance, let-
ters from President Roosevelt, ^o, as a horse-
man, ranks with his standing as a man, and
without which my errand would have been
fruitless. From His Imperial Majesty, the
Sultan of Turkey, I received an Irade, to-
gether with the courtesies of the Sublime Porte.
In Aleppo I had the extreme good fortune to
form a bond of true friendship with the ven-
erable Achmet Hafez, himself the Prince of
all the Bedouins. By him personally I was
taken to the desert and personally he interested
himself in my purchases of horses. Without
him it would have been an accident if I had
been able to purchase a single animal of abso-
lute purity of blood. It was these unusual
courtesies that brought success to the under-
taking and to all that extended them a sincere
and hearty acknowledgment is here made.

Thanks also are due and are here expressed
to Charles Arthur Moore, Jr., and to the late
John Henry Thompson, Jr., who were my
companions on the trip and whose hearty co-

[xiv]

PREFACE

operation was an invaluable aid in achieving
its ends. Acknowledgments are also made to
the Woman's Home Companion for permis-
sion to reprint from its pages much of the mat-
ter and many of the pictures used in this
volume.

To repeat again what has been said above,
my journey had this serious purpose in view —
that by a judicious use of the pure Arabian
blood, a breed of horse might be re-established
as useful to mankind as was the Morgan horse
when it was at its greatest. But, I had to get
to the desert before I could purchase my horses
and getting to the desert under the circmn-
stances, proved even more interesting and ro-
mantic than I had expected. That may sound
foolish. In these days, when an automobile
honk-honks through the bazaars of Damascus,
and when a trolley car clangs under the old
city gate over the pilgrim road to Mecca ; when
you journey most of the way to Mecca itself
on one railway and when you travel to the ruins
of Baalbek on another, there does not seem
to be much romance left.

But after you have been in the East for a
while you will find, as I did, that all the hustle
and bustle imparted from the Occident speedily

[XV]

PREFACE

become orientalized; there is always plenty of
time at the other end of the Mediterranean.

It is always "Bookra" (to-morrow) there.
A through "express" train stops to allow the
passengers to see an exciting fight between two
fellaheen on a threshing floor; during the com-
bat the conductor oflFers to you or accepts
from you a cigarette, and it is quite as often the
former as the latter. Imagine the 18-hour
limited slowing up because two farm hands
near Palatine Bridge were having a set-to!
Think of the Pullman conductor exchanging
cigars with you!

Even in Constantinople, where one might ex-
pect to find something of the energy of the
West, the story is the same. You walk down
the gangplank from the French steamer
moored just above the north of the Golden
Horn and — ^Bookra! Why be in a hurry? Is
there not a Bookra? Curiously enough, after
you have heard that dinned into your ears
enough times you begin to say to yourself: "Of
course I am not in a hurry. There is a
Bookra." And then you can really be part of
the East.

When you get back to America you realize

[xvi]

PREFACE

that this feehng has been more one of laziness
and inertia than of romance. It has been, you
are perfectly certain, just a response to your
environment. You are apt to wonder how
you ever could have yielded to it, but still you
are Vay sure that it was the only thing you
could have done at the time.

Even now, writing in Morris Plains, I find
myself thinking and almost believing that I
am again in the desert. I smell its smells and
hear its sounds. Under the tents of the
Anezeh my companions and I sit in the evening
silently drinking the salted coffee and smoking
the pipe passed around from hand to hand ; for
half hours at a time no one speaks — ^we only
hear the querulous jackals snarling over a bit
of offal on the outskirts of the camp; once in
a while some old Chief of the Tribe softly calls
upon Allah.

Again in my thoughts I renew the bond of
brotherhood with Achmet Hafez and begin all
over again my friendship with Hashim Bey, the
Sheikh of all the Sheikhs of the Bedouins.

It has been impossible for me, therefore, not
to include in this book some of the romance of
the desert and of the journey to it. I only

[ xvii ]

PREFACE

hope that the stories of the happenings whidi
interested me wiU interest those who may read
what follows, even if thev are not horsemen.

Homer Datenpokt.

Morris Plains, N. J.

[ xviii ]

My Quest of the Arab Horse

CHAPTER I

AN OEEGON ARAB AND WHAT IT LED TO

The real story of my trip to the Syrian des-
ert begins in Oregon in 1871.

At Christmas time of that year I received a
box of paints, and a few days after, at the age
of three years and nine months, I drew an il-
lustration which was known all through my
boyhood as "Arabian Horses." I believed
then that Arabian horses were spotted, like
leopards, an idea that I had evidently obtained
from circuses. However, it shows the tail car-
ried high, and this was a correct impression
that must have been conveyed to me by my
parents. Indeed the following letter from my
father shows that he used to tell me of Arab
horses :

"Silverton, Nov. 11, 1906.
"I cannot fix the exact time when I began to
tell you stories of the Arab and his horse, but it

[1]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

was when you were housed up in ihe winter of
'70-'71. All through the inclement weather
you had horse on the hrain and I pictured to
you the Arab as an equestrian, mounted upon
his glorious steed, his desert bom companion
that shared with him his tent and food and
aspirations.

"Although you were but three years and
nine months old, you exhausted my store of
knowledge relating to human and horse life
in Arabia. You seemed to be specially inter-
ested in the way the Arab horse carried his
head and tail ; to ask if it was like 'Old John.

y jf

I only relate this early evidence to show that
this trip to the desert was the realization of a
boy's dream. Ever since the drawing of this
picture of Arab horses, I have had in mind
Arab horses, and I have always been easily
stopped on any street comer, or crossroad, by
a story pertaining to the Arab or his horses,
and hour after hour of valuable time I have
spent in drawing the Arab horse or in talking
about him.

I must have been in my teens, when a great
revival of interest in the Arab came along with
the appearance in Silverton, Oregon, of a can

[2]

AN OREGON ARAB

bearing a label with a very beautiful picture
of a white Arab horse, having his shin bone
treated with what the can had once held. That
the liniment had gone, did not bother me at
all. I carefully removed the stains on the
cover of the can without soiling the lithograph,
and that can formed my only piece of artistic
furniture for a number of years. I remember
that for a time I had in mind that I would keep
the can, and, in later life, when I began to ac-
cumulate artistic treasures I could build around
it. But in 1892, when I was compelled by rel-
atives to leave Oregon for San Francisco, the
horse liniment can was left in the woodshed,
much against my will.

In 1893, however, at Chicago, just before the
opening of that World's Fair, the Arab germs
in my system got a fresh start. I was going
with a reporter on some detail, while employed
on the Chicago Herald, when, on State Street,
we heard some weird, queer music. Approach-
ing us were some gray horses slipping and fall-
ing on the wet pavement; horses that actually
had grace and beauty as they fell and regained
their feet almost instantaneously.

Though never having before seen a horse
with a speck of Arab blood in his veins, I knew

[3]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

that these were Arab horses. I told the re-
porter to wait and I would be back in a minute.
It was a long moment ; I followed those horses
— ^up one street and down another, until they
finally arrived back at their headquarters.
Here, with about eight thousand small boys, I
was stopped at the outside gate while the
horses, with big sparkling eyes and gracefully
carried tails, pranced in. The majority of
them were grays, and I thought (my four-
year-old drawing was in mind) it was very
strange that there were no spotted ones.

During the next few days I thought of noth-
thing else but these horses and dreamed of
nothing else during the nights. After a week
or so it commenced to worry me, but finally the
fair opened, and after it had been running a
few weeks, this Bedouin camp was exhibited on
the "Midway.''

In these days I drew nothing but horse
pictures, for I was on the Herald for that pur-
pose. I had been illustrating the Washing-
ton Park races, and had made the acquaintance
of Alf and William Lakeland. The first was
the famous trainer of thoroughbreds, who was
in Chicago with the horses of Mr. James R.
Keene. His brother William was simply there

[4]

AN OREGON ARAB

with open ears and loose change, listening for
the best tips. One day I went to the stalls in
the Bedouin camp and made a sketch of a gray
stallion they called Obeyran. I finished the
picture in pen and ink, and showed it to the
Lakelands. They thought I ought to get one
of the smaller horses in exchange for it, while
I had made up my mind to be content if they
would give me a saddle and bridle that had ac-
tually been on one of the horses, as I had
learned that all the animals had to be returned
to the desert near Damascus, whence they
had come by special permission of the Sultan
of Turkey.

The Lakelands went with me to present the
picture. I had stupidly drawn it while the
horse was in his stall, with the tail hanging as
an ordinary horse's tail would hang. The
Bedouins recognized the picture, and most of
them exclaimed "Obeyran!'* but in a moment
there was a rumpus raised because the tail was
carried low. One of them struck the picture
with a sword and cut it in two, and another
ripped at it, and finally it was knocked out of
my hands and torn in pieces. The Lakelands
and myself were thrown bodily out of the en-

[5]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

closure. There was a Syrian in the party
who could talk English, and he explained to
us that these town Arabs had misunderstood
our intention and thought that the picture had
been made as an insult to their horses. This
was quite a disappointment indeed. The
Lakelands were entirely discouraged, but it
only stopped me for a few days.

Notwithstanding the want of appreciation
given to my efforts as an artist, I was soon back
as a regular customer, paying every day that
the fair was open, to see the same horses go
through the same games, at the same price.
Because of the time I had spent on the bleach-
ers watching the games of the so-called
Bedouins, I lost my position on the Herald,
and was driven back to San Francisco, where
there were no Arab horses, and where, for this
reason, I was able to hold a position on one
of the newspapers.

At the close of the World's Fair, I saw by
the press dispatches that the Arab horses
which were to have been sent back to Svria,
had been held by a mortgage in this country,
and had been sold at an auction, but not until
after nine had been burned to death in their

[6]

AN OREGON ARAB

stalls. The remaining horses had been bought
principally by people in New England.

Late in the fall of 1895, 1 came to New York
City. One of the first letters I wrote was to Mr.
Randolph Himtington, of Oyster Bay, Long
Island, to inquire if he knew where the horses
that had been at the World's Fair had gone.
Mr. Huntington told me that he knew where
one was, a gray mare, which was the best of
the lot. I lost no time in seeing this mare,
but it was several years before I found the rest
of them. I was continually hunting for them
and they were finally discovered in the posses-
sion of Mr. Peter B. Bradley, of Hingham,
Massachusetts.

Mr. Bradley is an eminent horseman, who
had accumulated, regardless of cost, some of
our own trotters of the finest blood as well as
thoroughbreds, hackneys and other types.
Many of his Arab horses had died, but all that
were left of the original lot Mr. Bradley
owned. On my first visit to his place, I bought
one of the bay stallions, and began to make a
study of the Arab horse from close range. I
bought some books on the Arab horse, and
found that probably the Chicago Arabs were
not what one would call desert horses, with the

[7]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

exception of the fine gray mare, Ned j ma,
which Mrs. Ramsdell owned. The rest had
been shipped from Damascus and were town
Arabs. This made me all the more eager to
do something myself.

[8]

CHAPTER II

PROCURING THE IRADE AND THE START FOR

THE DESERT

There had been but one thought uppermost
in my mind ever since the liniment can days and
that was, to go to the desert personally and in
some way bring out Arab mares of unquestion-
able blood. I knew that to do that I should
need a permit from the Sultan of Turkey. I
also knew that while the Sultan had presented
General Grant with two stallions, he had re-
fused to let the General have any mares. It
was commonly understood that foreign na-
tions, which were continually seeking Arab
blood for the Government studs, with difficulty
obtained it.*

*In a letter his Excellency Ghikeb Bey, the Turkish Embas-
sador, at Washington, under date of December 27th, 1906, in
reply to a question from me, says: **! cannot tell exactly
the date when the exportation of Arabian horses from the
Ottoman Empire was forbidden, but if my memory serves me
well, the first prohibition dates back thirty or thirty-five
years,**

[9]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

In the latter part of December, 1905, 1 asked
President Roosevelt if he thought he could
help me to get a permit from the Sultan of
Turkey, as I had wanted to try and carry out
plans which I had had in mind for several
months, and I received the following letter
from him on January 1st, 1906, enclosing an-
other from the Secretary of State :

The White House,
Washington, January 1, 1906.
My Dear Mr. Davenport :

Anything you want I should like to do any-
how, and when it comes to dealing with
Arabian horses I would take you up with
double zeal. Is the enclosed letter from the
Secretary of State all right? If not, make
what changes you wish and I will have them
put in. You can use this letter too with any
of our representatives. With all good luck,
faithfully yours,

( Signed ) Theodore Roosevelt.
Mr. Homer Davenport,
The Evening Mail,
New York, N. Y.

With this letter I proceeded at once to
Washington for an interview with His Ex-

[10]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

cellency Chikeb Bey, then the Turkish Ambas-
sador, and after a very pleasant conversation
with him (he fortmiately is a horseman of the
highest order) he assured me that while to get
mares from the desert was almost impossible,
still he would make an earnest appeal and
would cable to Constantinople.

After a few days he received a cablegram in
return which gave me the first ray of hope, for
it inquired how many horses I wanted. There
was some discussion then as to the number I
should ask for. After consideration I con-
cluded that while six was a modest nimiber,
generally when you went beyond six you
said twelve and that just to break the monot-
ony of such a system I had best ask for six
or eight. This was done and the Sultan left
it just as I had put it, "six or eight," and to my
utter astonishment, as well as the Ambassa-
dor's, granted the Irade.*

♦In a letter dated December 28, 1906, from Lady Ann Blunt,
the most distinguished traveler and authoress of the Arabian
Desert, commenting upon my success in procuring such an
Irad6, the Lady has this to say: "There has always existed a
prohibition to export horses from Turkish territory, but of late
I believe it has been made more stringent, and the permission
given to you must have been due to great judgment and skill
on the part of the American Embassador. I doubt if at the
present time any other diplomat would have a like success."
I believe that the liberal permit was granted more through

[12]

PROCURING THE IRADE

I had made all my plans to go alone to the
desert, intending to proceed to Deyr, some 250
miles below Aleppo. A few days before I
planned to start, a tall athletic yoimg man with
the snappiest eyes in New York came in to see
me. This was John H. Thompson, Jr. We
had met on two or three occasions before.
When I told him I was going on the trip to
the desert his eyes got even brighter and he
said: "If I wouldn't be in the way I'd like
mighty well to go on that trip with you.*'

When I told him that I would like very much
to have him do so, he cut me short, and an-
swered : "Let that stand imtil I come in to-
morrow at 10 o'clock."

When he called the next day he said: "I'm
ready to catch any boat. Are you?"

In the meantime I received a letter from Mr.
C. A. Moore, the president of the firm of
Messrs. Manning, Maxwell & Moore, telling
me that his son, Arthur, was just as much of
an Arab as I was ; that he hadn't the slightest
doubt that his son would dance at the mention
of such a trip, but that he supposed it would

the influence of this distinguished Turkish ofllcial than through
any efforts on the part of the American Embassador, though
I am iiatisfled his efforts were of great help.

[18]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

be out of the question to think of his son's join-
ing me, as he was six feet four inches, weighed
245 pounds, and would, naturally, be in the
way. I called up the office on the *phone and
the young man himself answered. His father
hadn't spoken to him about the trip, but you
could actually hear the interest accumulating
in his voice. As I finished telling him what
his father had written me, he said, "All right,
we'll let it go at that; just coimt me in."
I asked him when he'd be ready, and he said:
"I'm ready now; I'll be up to see you in five
minutes."

I heard his telephone receiver drop off
the table and smash on the floor, and I came
to the conclusion that he'd rung off, as I failed
to get any more communication. And that's
how Moore and Thompson came to be on the
trip. You'll hear more about them later.

So, with a week's preparation, we sailed on
the French line, July the 5th, 1906, for
Havre, armed with powerful rifles, good let-
ters of credit, and a few other lesser necessi-
ties of life in the desert. Before I left home I
had in my stables all the horses that remained
of the Chicago importation, except the gray
mare, and one of her daughters that was owned

[14]

PROCURING THE IRADE

at Newberg; but of her family I had two of
her sons, one daughter and a grandson. So I
had at last overtaken the horses, and the de-
scendants of the horses, that I had seen slip-
ping so gracefully on the pavements of Chi-
cago. The passenger list was a very big one
on the French liner, but, when the passengers
went ashore in France, everybody who had
been on board the boat, even to the captain,
was fairly well informed on Arabian horses.

The two young men who were with me were
as proud of the Irade that I carried from his
Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, apparently, as
I was myself, and already it began to show
the wear and tear of much handling.

We reached Constantinople on a train they
called "The Limited," on July 19th, in the
forenoon, and after the usual formalities over
passports, went to the hotel. The American
Embassy was almost next door to the hotel,
and at the Embassy our first real excitement
came. When I arrived, Thompson and Moore
having preceded me, Mr. Alexander Gargiulo,
the first Dragoman, was talking Arab horse
with my companions and they had told him that
I had an Irade from the Sultan permitting me
to export six or eight mares. This he thought

[15]

de (Lnriftttr

<^^

^^^<*^ "^ <-»<^S&\tn^ J^^n^ /Tiay^ y'^^.^ O^-uU^t.^C' iy

PROCURING THE IRADE

was impossible. So when I came in, and they
asked me if I had the Irade with me, I took it
from my pocket with some pride. Then came
the usual fall. After Gargiulo had read it,
he said it meant nothing; that he was afraid
we had come a long journey for our health and
into a poor coimtry. He declared the "Irade"
was simply a letter from the Ambassador at
Washington, who could not write Irades. He
added that during his forty years at the Em-
bassy he had never heard of such a permit be-
ing granted to a Government, not to speak of
an individual; he hoped that it was official,
and said he would take the paper to the Palace
and find out its authenticity.

Of course you can see what my sleep was
that night. I had been in bed five minutes, per-
haps, when my first dream was that I had met
Mr. Gargiulo the next morning; that he had
come to me as politely as possible and told me
that the Sultan had no remembrance of any
such correspondence; that he was indeed very
sorry that I had been misled in coming so far
from home at such an awkward time of the year.
The next dream was similar, and so, after an
awful night, I was up at daylight, peevish.

However, on meeting Mr. Gargiulo at about

[17]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

10 o'clock the following morning, he drew from
his inside pocket, carefully, all the time smil-
ing more and more broadly, my Irade, with offi-
cial attachments pinned to it and with the add-
ed information from the Sultan, that, on this
occasion, I could export with the mares what
stallions I chose to purchase.

Things were different then; the dogs in the
street looked a little better to us, and we fig-
ured out that Constantinople would not be such
a bad place if they spent five or six years try-
ing to clean the streets. We were jubilant;
we went to see a polo match, saw the first Arab
polo horses, and heard evidence from an En-
glish naval officer that to play polo nowadays,
and play it right, one should be mounted on an
Arab.

We were restless to get on our journey.
The Sultan indeed had sent word to us from
the Palace that it would be impossible, owing
to the heat, to go to Aleppo and the desert at
that time of the year, but we smiled, and sent
word back with the royal messenger, that we
were not on a pleasure trip, but on business
only.

[18]

CHAPTER III

THE sultan's stables

Anxious as we were to get off to the desert
there were enough things in Constantinople to
keep us interested for several days, and chief
among them were the Selamlik, the only time
in those days when the outsider could get a
glimpse of His Imperial Majesty and a visit
to the royal stables. Of the Selamlik I shall
tell at length in another chapter, for it deserves
a chapter to itself. At the time we were in
Constantinople it was not entirely easy for for-
eigners to witness the ceremony, but permis-
sion to visit the Imperial stud was easily ob-
tained through Mr. Gargiulo. Mr. Gargiulo
was with General Grant on the latter's visit to
the Royal stables, when the Sultan offered him
a stallion, which the General at that time re-
fused. Later, when in France he saw what use
France had made of the Arab blood, he wrote
saying he would take the one oflfered. Mr.

[19]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

Gargiulo told the Sultan how lonely a trip to
America would be for one stallion and that two
would travel better together. Accordmgly the
Sultan gave two. His Majesty picked out a
gray and a black, and as they were being pre-
pared for the trip, Mr. Gargiulo tried them,
and found the black was not a good saddle
horse. He had to think of some scheme by
which an exchange could be made, but he knew
he would have to have a good reason. Final-
ly, as he went to the Master of Ceremonies, to
thank him for the stallions for the General, he
said: "But "

"But, what?" said the Master of Ceremonies,
with some heat^"you first ask for one, then for
two, and when all this is granted, you say,
But— But what?"

But — I have found from careful inspection
of history," answered Gargiulo, "that no
American ruler ever rode a black horse. Will
not His Majesty send a horse of some other
color for the black one?"

The Master of Ceremonies made note, and
said His Majesty should be told.

The next day another horse had been chosen,
a darker gray than the first one, which must
have been "Linden-tree," as he was the darker

[20]

r

THE SULTAN'S STABLES

of the two, and a better horse, Mr. Gargiulo
said that as far as breed was concerned, no one
knew their blood, they were just presents to the
Sultan, and presents from the Sultan to Gen-
eral Grant, of no known blood, and were sup-
posed to be pure Arabs. I told this distin-
guished old gentleman that "Linden-tree"
was much written of in America as a barb,
when he laughed heartily, adding: "No barbs
were ever in the Sultan's stable, as he does not
like the people, much less the horses."

The Sultan's stables are long, low buildings,
with a row of wide stalls on each side of a
passageway down the centre. They are
very plain and the horses stand on the bare
cement floor during the day, which is very bad
for their feet. In the Arab barns we saw
thirty-five bays and chestnuts, one black, and
thirty-two grays and whites. Not more than
twelve were pure white, and they had very dark
skin aroimd the eyes and nose. The superin-
tendent of the stables did not know the breed-
ing of the horses, but when I asked about a
beautiful gray stallion, he said he was of Bag-
dad breed. This would be like saying he was a
Philadelphia horse. A chestnut stallion that
seemed to be the favorite, was called by the

[21]

!!
I

111

III

I

i

THE SULTAN'S STABLES

superintendent a "Nejd" breed. Now there is
no "Nejd" breed; the people of Nejd buy their
horses from the Anezeh, as Nejd is not a good
horse country. I asked if he had any Seglawi
Jedrans (the favorite breed of the desert) , and
he brought four stallions, bays, which he said
were Seglawi Jedrans. But when I suggested
that a chestnut, a fine specimen, looked like my
own Mannakey, which is a Hamdani Simri, the
man in charge hearing the words "Hamdani
Simri," immediately nodded, and said the horse
was a Hamdani. This made me think that he
simply was trying to please me. The Sultan's
horses are of good blood, though perhaps they
are not all that would please the Bedouin.
They are kept badly and without exercise. If
they were other than the Arabs they would
have lost all semblance to horses, but the Arab
can cavort roimd even with his flanks full of
fat when another horse would completely col-
lapse.

As the horses were brought out in front of
the main stables they were ridden by one of the
most expert men I have ever seen in the sad-
dle. From the point of style he was flawless.
His hands were almost under him in his seat,
any antics or play of the horses did not disturb

[23]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

him in the least, and his command of the horse
was perfect. Not many of the horses had
jibbahsy or full foreheads, so esteemed by the
Bedouin desert tribes. They were ridden in
a circle over a pile of loose stones about the size
of hen's eggs.

Yet over these rolling rocks they galloped
and pranced, changing gaits as easily as an
auto will shift its gear. We all commented on
the fact that there never was a misstep, or a
stumble, or a bimiping of ankles. A bay horse
with a peculiar blazed face and feet, eighteen
years old, was as nimble as any colt. Their
lack of exercise was plain from their stuffy
flanks, but their action was beautiful. In the
stall they were tied from each side, and from
the middle of the nose-band, and one, a white
stallion, was fastened by the front pastern. To
get exercise most of them had pawed holes in
the concrete floor. All in all they were a fine
lot of horses, but poorly kept, to say the least.

The Sultan, himself, is a horseman, and per-
haps knows the breeding of every animal in his
stables. And he being a horseman, I would
dare make a suggestion to him, as a Westerner
to an Easterner.

The horses in the Turkish Empire show a

[24]

THE SULTAN'S STABLES

lack of good stock. They are deplorably in
need of new blood. I would suggest to His
Majesty that he send his fine stallions each
spring all through the Empire and breed them
to the really good mares which are to be found
in all parts of the coimtry. The French Gov-
ernment has followed this plan with excellent
results. The fee should be small, of course.
In France it is only $3.00 and this compara-
tively small sum enables the poorest peasant
to secure the service of the best stallions the
Government owns.

If this were done I venture to predict that in
ten years the majority of horses in the Turkish
Empire would be good instead of what they
are now — ^bad.

Germany and Russia as well as France have
done this very thing, not only with their own
horses, but with the very few which they have
been able to import from Turkey. The result
has been almost amazing.

Then when one sees such a large number of
finely bred stallions going to waste in stables
where they are not even exercised, a sugges-
tion like the one I have made comes naturally
to one's mind.

The Sultan has, of late years, established

[25]

3IY QUEST OF THE ABAB HORSE

scxne f aims, wbere be takes pleasure in bleed-
ings from the finest animals be has in his stables,
and ifdiere be could start the foundaticm of
M^iat would be immensely appreciated by bis
people.

It must be r^n^nbered that wboi we were
in C<Mistantinople the old r^ime was at its
best — or its worst. Perhaps among the re-
forms whidi Abdul Hamid has promised since
the "revolution" to his subjects, the improve-
ment of the breed of horses will some day be
numbered.

[26]

'^^'^'Y ^^^^'^,n

Up t

Sultan, and might have coEt a lot ot

human sulIerlnK, as bigh TuTklah of

procure the Irade were In dangfr of bel

thia iketch. and had it not been for

American Conaul at Alexandretta, Ti

dlHcovered It and my horaes and mareg been conQscated.

was, tbe picture was smuggled onto the ahtp In a bale ot bay. l

dare say It's a Btrong caricature o[ tbe Sultan Instead ot a

character studyi though that matters little to him now.

uble, to Bay nothing of
I la that had helped me
ng put in exile owing to
'he Hon. J. B. Jackson,
klsh spies would have

CHAPTER IV

THE SULTAN OF TURKEY

At the time we were in Constantinople, to
see the Sultan was an event. The only possible
opportunity for the public (the very limited
public) to get a view of him was at the Selam-
lik. This was a sort of religious parade, ac-.
complished every Friday, when His Majesty
drove a few yards out of his palace grounds
and down a hill to a mosque for religious wor-
ship.

The custom of centuries, the Mohammedan
religious law, even, had decreed that on every
Friday the successor of the true prophet should
make his devotions at the Mosque of St. So-
phia. And for centuries the Sultans of Tur-
key obeyed the law and custom.

Every Friday saw them proceeding in state
to the ancient church erected by Constantine
when the cross was above the crescent on the

[28]

THE SULTAN OF TURKEY

Golden Horn, and there promising God and
His prophet to maintain the faith.

Even Abdul Aziz, in whose reign the eternal
"Eastern Question" first began to ask emphat-
ically for an answer, and who was murdered in
1876, did this thing; even Abdul Murad, who
was "removed" after two months of nominal
rule, did it; and even Abdul Hamid II fol-
lowed their example for many years. Then
came more troublous times. His Majesty im-
mured himself in the Yildiz Kiosk and the visits
to St. Sophia became less frequent. Indeed,
they ceased altogether. For, remember — the
Yildiz palace is on the Bosphorus above Pera ;
and Pera is above Galata ; and between Galata
and Stamboul there is a long and treacherous
bridge of boats, and between the bridge of
boats and St. Sophia there are many narrow
streets to traverse. From any window of the
houses that line these narrow streets, a bullet
might be fired or a bomb might be dropped
and who the wiser, though the sidewalks be
lined with troops ?

Once in a long time Abdul Hamid made the
trip from the Yildiz Kiosk to Stamboul down
the Bosphorus in a boat. But Bosphorus
boats, as many Sultans of Turkey know, are

[29]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

dangerous affairs, so even this was finally aban-
doned. Worship was confined to the Mosque
near the Yildiz Kiosk. Even in these narrow
precincts His Majesty was not safe, as the
bomb thrown at him a few years ago bears wit-
ness.

It was natural, therefore, that the attendance
at the Selamlik was carefully scrutinized and
that one's credentials had to be thoroughly
looked into before a permit to witness the cere-
mony could be obtained. Generally the get-
ting of the permit is a matter of four weeks
or so, but we had no time to spare and so were
prepared for the ceremony on short notice.

It required real activity on the part of the
Embassy to get us three to the post at the
right time and it was at 11 o'clock Friday
morning, July 20, 1906, before we knew the
"one best bet." Our appearance was a shock
to the dignified foreign consuls and ambassa-
dors. For some reason or other, they did not
think we were dressed exactly right. Moore
wore his own trousers, with a borrowed frock
coat which was a little tight for that kind of a
day, and a borrowed plug hat (that's the only
name to call it) which was two sizes too small.
It is strange, but true, that some other fellow's

[80]

'eat tor tbe dlplomatB when we lined up I
BdmiaBlon to the palace.

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

hat never looks quite right on you, especially
if it's a size and a half too small. Moore han-
dled his hat as a farmer does the parlor lamp.
He dropped it once, and it fell out of the car-
riage the same number of times. He didn't
wear it, but he tried to balance it on his head
as a carrier would carry a jug of water.
Thompson did not have a frock coat, but he
had a raincoat which he said he could button
so that no one could tell it from a frock. This,
with ordinary trousers, and a straw hat an-
chored by a clothesline to his toughest button*
hole, completed his outer raiment. As for my-
self, I had a frock coat, with trousers of an-
other suit, and a plain slouch white hat that
looked well (I thought, in New York), but
which showed the effects of the trip on the
Oriental Limited from Paris. It was all right
to turn water, but I saw that the foreign
diplomats noticed the general outfit, which, in
a baseball term, was not what one might call
"team work."

We were hurried into two carriages to the
scene of action, with officers wrapped in gold
braid distributed among us, which gave to the
trip a military atmosphere.

The feeble dogs dragged themselves out of

[82]

THE SULTAN OF TURKEY

the way just as the wheels grazed their hind
quarters, as we rode through the hot, foul
streets. Donkies, bearing heavy burdens,
were yelled at by our driver; we passed line
after line of soldiers, who all saluted; we
climbed hills, where the cobblestones were very
rough; we saw troops; we passed an officer
mounted on a horse that showed much Arab
blood. Finally we came to outposts through
which few passed, but we drove on and on,
passing line after line of strict guards. As we
passed along, the fences and gates were more
heavily plated with gold, and at last we ar-
rived at the wing of the Palace facing the
street. In the reception room, properly
dressed diplomats stood as stiff as iron statu-
ary on old-fashioned country estates. We
nudged ourselves with elbows as we saw people
recognize that this, that, or the other, of our
garb, was borrowed. We felt that the whole
Turkish Army, which had been drawn up in
review outside the Palace, knew it. Still, in
our awkward manner, we thought that the
army, at least, might think we were diplomats
from some countries that they had not heard of.
As we were being presented to high Turk-
ish officials, Moore nearly dropped the bor-

[88]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

rowed silk hat again, and an officer, who could

speak a little EngUsh, asked Thompson if he

did not find it a warm day for an OTercoat; so

discovered, he took it off. We laid our hats

on the big table, among

the other plug hats, and

some in the room smiled

again.

From the balcony win-
dow we watched battahon
after battalion arrive and
form a mile in each direc-
tion; all along the route
of the short parade sol-
diers stood with bayonets
in their rifles. Band after
band came, that reminded
me of the Silverton band,
in Oregon. One was actu-
ally playing the same
march we used to play in
^^^.. Silverton — "Belgrade."

*' r Royal Eunuch. . ^roops had been form-
ing for more than an
hour. We noticed that there was a great dif-
ference between them and our soldiers, and at
first we could not think what the difference
[84]

THE SULTAN OF TURKEY

was, but eventually we struck it. These sol-
diers never smile. They look as if they were
going into immediate battle. There was no
expression of good fellowship; they seemed
tired, and not one recognized, in any way, the
comrade by his side. When they saluted the
generals, or some high state official, the action
was as automatic as that of a wooden soldier.

And now the ceremony is on. The Sul-
tan's Master of Ceremonies comes and we
are presented. He is all smiles, and at a dis-
tance, from the motion of his hands, you think
he is washing them. He explains that much as
the Sultan might have wished, an audience
with us is impossible, but that he will be glad
to arrange it for a later date. Through him,
I thank the Sultan for the honor of the Irade,
which had brought me to Constantinople.

Presently a carriage comes up the little
steep hill, with guards at the side. In this
closed carriage we see two women with veils
over their heads; beside them are sitting two
girls, perhaps fifteen years of age or less.
They peer at the visitors on the veranda, and
in at the windows of the Palace ; they seem curi-
ous to know what things look like outside of
the three great walls. It is whispered that

[85]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

they are princesses, daughters of the Sultan,
and that the others are women of the Harem.
Back of this carriage walk six ill-shaped,
gaunt, long-legged black beings; they look
more like educated apes than species of men.
Their hands are awkward, and their feet are
long and vulgarly flat. All they do is to
smile and follow the carriage, like coach dogs.
Their long black frock coats even have a dis-
agreeable swing; they are Eimuchs, and when
they speak it is in a high tenor voice, not at all
musical.

It is getting close to the hour of the cere-
mony and some foreign officer in the Palace
complains that the Sultan is late. A double
line of distinguished men, nearly covered with
braid and medals, and swords, marches down
and forms a circle around where the Imperial
carriage will be drawn up. These men are the
guards of the household. Then three stately
men, old men, march silently by. They are
field marshals. Two small children appear on
the marble steps where the Sultan will soon
appear. They are the Sultan's children, boys
aged about twelve and eight. Their uniforms
are very heavy, but they bear themselves easily
and naturally. Generals bow to them and

[86]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

their tiny spurs glisten from their boots, al-
though no stick horses are in sight.

While all is still, a trumpet makes a loud,
long sound and swords and rifles, like one big
click from a tremendous clock, are brought
up to present arms; and then we hear from
up near the top of the Mosque a priest yelling
in a monotone, something that suggests a song,
or prayer of some wild desert tribe. Thou-
sands of soldiers yell at the same instant, as
if by some automatic process, the same words.
The sound makes you shudder with its wild
melody.

An open carriage a)mes through the great
gates, which sparkle like gold as they are
swimg open. Surrounding the carriage are
guards, with drawn swords and tightly
clenched fists. Hitched to the carriage are two
fine bay horses, with docked tails. Their coats
are as golden as their harness; they prance,
they need exercise. There, saluting in that
automatic way, rides the Sultan. In the seat
facing him is a ponderous man ; I don't really
see him. I just see the reflections and high
lights. I know that his local color is white
and red and gold. They tell us that this large
glittering object is the Minister of War. At

[38]

THE SULTAN OF TURKEY

any rate he seems to wear everything the army
has ever captured. But I was there to see the
Sultan — and to draw him !

Can you imagine my feelings? Here was
a man, not twenty-five feet from me, whose
features most of the world did not know and
wanted to see; one of the great rulers of the
earth who had never posed for a picture — and
I did not dare pull a sketching pad from my
pocket I

I was afraid my eyes would not register.
Suppose a fly had flown into them for just
that brief moment? Suppose I had sneezed?
It would have been rough handling, and it
would have meant expulsion from the country
if I had drawn a pad from my pocket, as de-
tectives and spies stood behind us watching our
hands. Worst of all, I was afraid that if I
did make an attempt to sketch I would have
my Irade taken away. So it may be plain why
I did not notice the Minister of War, or who-
ever it was in the carriage with the Sultan. I
did not even notice the beautiful Arabian stal-
lions which were led just back of his carriage.
But my eyes did work and they did register
even under such a strain. I saw the Sultan's
features well, and they were mine; so mudi so

[39]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

that on his return from the Mosque, driving
himself behind two white Arab stallions, it
seemed that we were old friends.

The Sultan is, after all, just a man; a frail,
elderly man, enjoying, I should say, the best
possible life under such conditions. Uncon-
sciously he rather shrank from the gaze of so
many hungry eyes, though he bore a kindly ex-
pression mingled with a certain degree of fear.
He looked like a combination of the late Nel-
son Dingley, of Maine, and Mr. Nathan
Strauss, of New York. I can say this with
all due respect to the three concerned. The
Sultan's forehead is a thoughtful one, although
his fez prevented me from seeing how high it
was. His eyes and eyebrows, while showing
the strain under which he lives, also show that
he is a kind father, and would, if permitted,
be a kindly home man. His face is thin and
frail ; his beard is carelessly kept. One of his
eyebrows strays back of his eyebrow bone, al-
most into his temple. As his carriage arrived
at the Mosque, the generals fairly bowed to the
ground. He climbed out as most men of six-
ty-four years would. His children greeted
him, and he turned to admire the smaller one.

[40]

THE SULTAN OF TURKEY

Standing, he is below the average in stature,
slightly bent on the shoulders.

He was fatherly to his children, turning aft-
er he had gotten up three steps to come
back one step and greet them again. I
thought when I saw this that no matter what
crimes had been charged to him, his expression-
less soldiers, his army and its leaders were pos-
sibly more to blame than he.

If you ever saw Nelson Dingley walking up
and down the aisle of the House of Congress,
even through the worry and stress of the Ding-
ley Tariff Bill, you saw in him a kindness so
stamped that it showed through the slight
snarl of expression brought on by overwork
and bad light. So when the Sultan turned
to help his little tots, who were playing
generals, he was Nelson Dingley turning,
though tired, to listen to the jest of his famous
colleague, Tom Reed.

Consider the handicap of being bom to be a
Sultan, or a Czar, or a King; of being deprived
of the opportunity of meeting the common peo-
ple. Think of not being able to enjoy a fire-
side chat with your family, or of the influence
of a wife. Think of being brought up to know
the earth only by its maps and not its dirt and

[41]

t the stepa leading

THE SULTAN OF TURKEY

soil; its countries by the uniforms of their
armies and not their peoples; to know just a
few men and then only through layer after
layer of cold, gold braid. Think of the ruler
of a nation who has never had the opportunity
of knowing personally the big, broad-minded,
natural man or woman, and then you will not
wonder at him for not having a fair imder-
standing what the world is really for. The
holder of such a throne only knows what the
doorkeeper to the throne tells him, and these
keepers naturally tell him what is best for them
and for the people nearest them. The lessons
that are in the lives of other men are kept from
him. He does not even know how they lived,
or when they died. I have heard stories of the
Sultan's cruelty, and most of them I do not be-
lieve. If he is cruel, his heart and face do not
show it.

So I think the Turkish system is more to
blame for the Sultan's ill reputation than the
Sultan himself. He has been forced to be-
come suspicious. He has been able to trust no
one and he has achieved the reputation of not
being trustworthy himself. This digression
will explain in part the impression reduced to
drawing of my view of the Sultan.

[48]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

A greater part of an hour must have passed,
while we could hear singing in the Mosque, and
as the Sultan came out, he kissed the hands of a
general of the Royal Guard and then half knelt
before him. The fine rug was re-spread on
the marble landing and a carriage was drawn
up that had previously gone to the Mosque
empty. It was a top-phaeton, drawn by two
white Arabian stallions, with long, artificial
like looking tails. They pranced, but were
well broken and behaved. Two grooms in gol-
den robes stood at their heads. There was a
pause and then everybody opened their mouths
and yelled. Guards on the marble stairway
began to bow, some knelt, and slowly this frail,
elderly man, with black coat and trousers, with
a golden vest that buttoned up under his
beard, came in sight. His fez was red, and
the only other color was in the small plain
bands of gold on each shoulder. He touched
his lips and forehead with his half-closed hand
and with the same mechanical stiffness. He
tarried on the stairway, looked across over the
tired looking city, turned half round, and saw
a thousand cavalry mounted on dapple-gray
horses, a thousand on black horses, a thousand

[44]

THE SULTAN OF TURKEY

on bays, an equal number on chestnuts, all hold-
ing aloft small standards.

Again came the yell that echoed over in
Asia. One of the princes joined his father,
who climbed into the doctor-like phaeton as the
top was lowered, and took the lines where
they had been carefully left, properly tucked
between the white whip and the dashboard.
The grooms left the stallions' heads and the
procession started back. The fine white
Arabs, rolling in fat, started to play, and the
Sultan popped the whip on the loins, with the
same peculiar jerk that common cabmen here
use. He then held the reins and whip in his
left hand, and saluted, when the great army,
so statue-like and cold, fairly knelt to the
ground. Back of his carriage pranced a black
Arab stallion, and back of him a fine bay one,
with white feet and a star in his forehead, and
back of them two dapple grays. They were
saddled and bridled in rich gold trimmings,
looking fit for the Minister of War. But they
were not for the Minister of War. They were
there in case the kindly appearing old gentle-
man might want to ride. He did not care to
do so that particular day. He preferred to
drive and as he passed up through the big, gol-

[45]

THE SULTAN OF TURKEY

den gates, his personality was that of an old
man who might be knitting. He led you to
believe that you had actually known him well, a
long, long time.

Our effort was to get out of the Palace as
quickly as possible and draw the picture which
I had in mind. It would be necessary for us
to get some miles away, as we were already
looked upon by the Turkish spies as men sent
by the President of the United States to in-
vestigate Armenian trouble. But after twenty
minutes ride from the Palace, Moore sug-
gested that I should not risk going further.
He said I ought to put down the impression
of this remarkable old gentleman before any-
thing faded from my memory. So, guarded
by two big stalwart young men, I made a
picture, which pleased us beyond expression.
I had got at something which made the draw-
ing one of the man himself, not an idealised
Sultan. It soon became our greatest care to
know how to protect it. Under much persua-
sion we showed it to an intimate friend of the
Sultan in Constantinople; a man who had
known him for forty years. After I had
showed it to him, and he kept looking at it, I
began to get nervous. It dawned on me all

[47]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

at once that if he said that the picture was not
a good likeness, then my confidence in it as a
likeness would be destroyed. But soon he
closed the sketch book and handed it to me with
a whisper: "It is the only picture of him ever
made. If it is ever known that you have it
your visit to the Ottoman Empire will be a
sad one." He implored us not to write to
America about it, but to keep it always in an
inside pocket tightly buttoned.

We thought we had carried out these instruc-
tions. In Aleppo it was shown to only one
man, and out in the desert only Akmut Hafez
and Hashem Bey saw it. Yet when we ap-
proached Alexandretta, on the way back, an
American came three hours ride into the moun-
tains to meet us and tell us that the Turkish
spies in Alexandretta knew, or thought they
knew, that I had a picture of the Sultan with
me. He told us that if this picture was dis-
covered all my horses and mares would be con-
fiscated, that the Irade would be taken away
and that the trip would count for nothing. So
we put the sketch-book containing the Sul-
tan's picture, in the middle of a bale of hay,
which was secretly marked. Then we took two
Arab soldiers into our confidence and told them

[48]

THE SULTAN OF TURKEY

to keep a secret watch out on that particular
bale of hay. When we arrived in Alexan-
dretta, the spy, who had seized our guns on our
way in, hunted through everything, but failed
to find what he was after.

I had collapsed twice that morning with the
intense heat, and went out with the first light-
er of horses to the steamer. No greater sigh
of relief was ever heaved than when I saw com-
ing on the last lighter to our boat, as she lay
anchored in the Mediterranean, the last of the
horses and mares, and with them a bale of hay,
that meant more than all the other bales of hay
I had ever seen.

[49]

CHAPTER V

FEOM CONSTANTINOPLE TO ANTIOCH

Having seen the Sultan and having the
Irade confirmed there was little else to be done
in Constantinople. We were ready and even
were anxious to start forward to accomplish
the real end of the trip. From the beginning
it had been my intention to go to El Deyr on
the Euphrates and there purchase horses which
I might be assured came from the Anezeh
themselves. I was under the impression at
that time that the Anezeh, not often coming so
far north as El Deyr, would only be found in
the neighborhood of Palmyra, that "Tadmor
in the Wilderness" which is as old as Solomon.

In Constantinople my views about going to
Deyr, however, were somewhat modified, al-
though my plans were not entirely changed, as
will be told further on, until we reached
Aleppo.

At the Pine Palace Hotel in Constantinople

[50]

CONSTANTINOPLE TO ANTIOCH

we met Mr. Forbes of the firm of MacAndrews
& Forbes, the largest dealers in liquorice root
in the world, which makes its exportations
mainly through Alexandretta or Iskanderoon,
as it is locally known. Mr. Forbes is intimate-
ly acquainted with the country around Aleppo
and knows all about the desert beyond.

Mr. Forbes laughed at the idea of going to
the Desert at that time of the year, and said
that we ought to stay in Constantinople at least
until January before making the attempt. He
declared that we would be unable to stand the
heat, even in Aleppo, and that because the
Bedouin wars had been so many and frequent
for five years, his firm had discontinued the
shipping of liquorice from points near Deyr.
We admitted that our knowledge such as it
was, had been gained mainly from the books of
Mr. Wilfred and Lady Anne Blunt, written
thirty years before, but that we were prepared
to go to Deyr if necessary.

Mr, Forbes still strongly advised against
that plan, but gave us ample letters to his peo-
ple at Alexandretta and Aleppo, and also
cabled them that we were coming. Mr. Forbes
owned an Arab horse in Smyrna with which he
had won the Sultan's cup in a race, and had

[51]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

been trying to get a horse he had heard of in
Aleppo. This was a great brown stallion
which had been recently presented to the Gov-
ernor of Aleppo. The Italian Government
had tried to buy him, but he was known as the
"Pride of the Desert," and had been presented
to the Governor by the combined Bedouin
tribes.

Nothing, said Mr. Forbes, could persuade
the Governor to sell him. He was beyond all
value and price in the estimation of the Pasha.
All this naturally aroused our great curiosity
and interest and we were more eager than ever
to be off, little thinking how well we were to
become acquainted with the desert's pride and
his owner.

The next day we left Constantinople for
Alexandretta via Beyrout, Syria, a rather
roundabout voyage of eleven days with numer-
ous stops.

In Beyrout, through the kindly assistance of
United States Consul Magelssen, we were en-
abled to employ as interpreter for our trip to
the desert, Ameene S. Zeytoun, who had been
in the employ of the American Government
for a number of years, and who spoke English
as well as he did Arabic. The further we went

[52]

Amfen Zaytown of the American Consulate at Bey rout, wbo
was mjr Interpreter to the Anezeh. A more talthtut and tbought-
lul jroung man I have never met.

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

the more we congratulated ourselves that we
had been able to secure Mr. Zeytoun's serv-
ices. He was of the greatest aid in smoothing
out any difficulties which arose from our ig-
norance of the language or the customs of the
people and was always diplomatic and courte-
ous.

Nevertheless we were very glad to get away
from Beyrout. We saw there the kind of
"Arab" horse which could readily be sold to the
stranger as the genuine breed, and we also
encountered the crooked horse dealers of the
East, who naturally swear to anything unless
it be the truth. But we were spared from fall-
ing into their traps and it was daylight on
August 2nd, when the noise of the anchor
chain, as it rattled down, woke me up as we
were lying off Alexandretta. I had been
warned against Alexandretta by Chekib Bey,
the Turkish Ambassador at Washington, as a
dangerous place to stop in even for a night
and further by Mr. Forbes, who said it was
one of the most unhealthy places in the world,
owing to the mosquitoes, and the fever which
followed their bite. We soon had first class
confirmation of these warnings.

Shortly after the anchor was dropped, two

[54]

CONSTANTINOPLE TO ANTIOCH

Englishmen came aboard and asked for us.
They were from the MacAndrews & Forbes
Liquorice Works. One, a Mr. Sneddon, was
very sick of fever, and the other looked to be
in a bad way. While I was producing a letter
from Mr. Forbes Mr. Sneddon suddenly grew
faint, and the other man apologized.

"That poor fellow is down with the fever
again," he remarked, and as Sneddon lay down
on the deck he added : "It will only be for a mo-
ment; he will be all right presently." Mr.
Sneddon lay there groaning, but after a few
moments he straightened up and read the let-
ter. That's the way the fever takes you.

Then we went ashore and as soon as we
landed we ran against the ignorant red-tape of
the Turkish empire. All of our guns were
seized, except a three-barrelled one and that
was exempted because the officials thought that
the third barrel (a rifle one), was the ramrod
holder. We just had to have those guns, so
after breakfast we went to the Custom House
where the Governor of the town was closeted
with the Collector of the Port. Both these ofii-
cials had orders from Constantinople to pass
our sporting rifles, but they had been advised,
they said, that our firearms did not come within

[35]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

that category because they could see no ram-
rods attached to them. It was futile to enter
into any argument and we soon learned what
the trouble was,

Al Hami Bey, a spy of the government, was
the trouble. The Governor and the Collector
were afraid of him. He had rumored about
the town that we were gun manufacturers from
America, and that our guns were only samples
of what we were taking to the desert. We
drank, it seems to me, as I look back on it,
coffee by the gallon and smoked cigarettes by
the dozens, but nothing came of these official
hospitalities. We could not get our guns un-
til further and more explicit instructions came
from the Sublime Porte. That meant, appar-
ently that we should have to wait until Al
Hami gave the word. That man looked to
me then and I have no doubt would look to
me now, exactly like a spy. He objected to
everything, and especially everything Amer-
ican. It is this kind of man which causes the
Sultan of Turkey to be much misunderstood.
You could see from the spy*s expression that he
thought Arthur Moore was too big, physical-
ly ; and he was sore he could not have him held.
The Turkish spy is always small.

[56]

CONSTANTINOPLE TO ANTIOCH

But the guns were not to be had. That was
plain after what I had heard and seen and I did
not want to stay an hour longer in the place
than was necessary. So we decided to leave
Jack Thompson behind us to wait for the cable
from Constantinople and bring along the guns.
He was to be taken to the mountains that night
away from the mosquitoes and return the next,
while Moore, Mr. Sneddon, the sick English-
man and myself, together with three soldiers
as bodyguards, were to leave for Antioch, eight
hours ride toward Aleppo.

Personally I was not sorry to leave Alexan-
dretta. It is a miserable place built in the
right angle of the Mediterranean, between
Syria and Asia Minor. It is a small town with
a large graveyard, and it is almost shoved into
the water by the big meaningless mountains at
its back. At a quick glance it would suggest
the banks of the upper Snake River, in the
northwest. The people have a washy yellow
complexion, owing to the fever which is al-
ways present.

Its mosquitoes are smaller than the Jersey
mosquitoes, but they are wilder, and have
striped legs. They are the most deadly species
of any mosquitoes in the Ottoman Empire.

[57]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

When you once become aware that these mos-
quitoes are dangerous you are as watchful as
if they were yellow jackets; you swing at the
slightest sound. They sing in a higher tenor
key than the Jerseyites. They are even still
more elusive and I was surprised after my long
experience in New Jersey that I could not kill
one of these natives of Alexandretta. They
were as wild as himiming-birds, and in their
flying, dipped in and out much the same
fashion.

As Moore and I drove out of the town we
saw an appalling sight. It was a little girl of
about twelve years of age, whom the fever had
nearly eaten away. She was coming through
a graveyard with a jug of water on her head.
Her lips were so drawn that her teeth were all
exposed to view, and her arms and legs were
mere skin and bone. She looked as though she
had come from the grave. The graveyard
through which she was walking was a low,
marshy place where water buffalo wallowed in
the mud among the rock-piled graves. Por-
tions of the small valley between the town and
the mountains were all taken up with swampy
graveyards swarming with mosquitoes. It
was a relief to get out of Alexandretta.

[58]

CONSTANTINOPLE TO ANTIOCH

But as soon as we came to the mountains we
arrived at what seemed to be the cliff dwellers'
home. There was a town of some size, built
just as if the swallows had made it of mud,
hanging from the mountains. The houses
were perched on top of each other, all suspend-
ed from the cliffs above. Water rushed in
ditches between the houses. This was the town
of Baylan, the first place of safety from the
fever we had reached since leaving the sea coast
below.

The soldiers rode ahead of us to the thickest
part of the village. We stopped there a few
moments to take tea. During that brief space
the whole population gathered aroimd leaving
their shops to take care of themselves.

We were now traveling on the finest moun-
tain road I had ever seen. It was the old
ancient Roman road and the same one over
which Darley's Arabians had travelled when
he was taken from Aleppo in 1703. We passed
one point that looked dangerous; we could
look over the bank more than two hundred
feet down to the jagged rocks below. And
then on and on we climbed over this wonderful
mountain pass.

We saw small boys herding long-eared

[59]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

black goats; we saw the packs of many hun-
dreds of camels stacked at the roadside. The
camels were away being herded in the momi-
tains for food. Then the night came on and
we could not see anything.

[60]

CHAPTER VI

ANTIOCH TO ALEPPO

We reached Antioch at 11 o'clock that night.
It was the longest eight-hour ride I had ever
taken. Shortly after we had left Baylan it
began to become dark and Moore fell asleep
in the carriage. Sneddon had been groaning
with his fever. The soldiers were afraid to
ride on for fear of Circassian bandits, who con-
sider that part of the country their own. A
tire came off the front wheel and the near horse
dropped a shoe, but we hammered both on with
rocks. It was getting quite dark, and jackals
were barking here and there.

After miles and miles of valley road, we cir-
cled a lake towards some high rocky peaks.
As we got near to Antioch we crossed an old,
odd-patterned rock bridge, crossing the
Pranties River and I woke Arthur and the sick
man, as the carriage rattled onto the Roman
pavement of the city. Our repeated knocks

[61]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

not only aroused the hotel-keeper, hut all the
world, wolf-like dogs, at the same time.

Our host was most civil considering the time
of night. That is to say, he led us through
damp smelling, rocky mud hallways to our
room. This was an apartment about twelve
feet square, that had windows looking out over
the river. We were a scant story high. Un-
derneath was a stable where we could hear

camels grumbling and donkeys trying to bray
and not quite succeeding. We were not very
talkative. Moore looked at me as if he wished
he had never seen me. I smiled a smile that
[62]

ANTIOCH TO ALEPPO

was meant to hurt Moore, but hurt me worse.
A half-naked filthy servant was trying to make
us comfortable, but we had left our interpreter,
Ameene Zatoon, with Thompson in Alexan-
dretta and we could not understand. Sneddon
spoke just enough Turkish to delay things.
The servant only grinned when the latter
talked and soon shuffled off apparently going
nowhere. But there was a table in the centre
of the room and also three benches. That was
enough. We lay down on them and were
soon asleep.

About an hour after, the ragged servant
waked us up and invited us to eat. And we
ate. What it was we never knew or really
cared — we just ate it. Part of it was a sort of
bread with which we sopped up the rest. All
was washed down with boiling hot tea. Then
we made down our beds on the benches. Mean-
time, I looked around the walls and at some
small worn holes in the mud plastering, and
roughly guessed the plot. Sure enough when
the lamp went out the real hostilities began. I
mistook the first two symptoms, but finally
there was no mistaking. Moore and Sneddon
were asleep, but restlessly so. The former
fought as only a giant would, and even in his

[63]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

sleep he sat up and pressed the button on a
small pocket electric lamp, and swept the in-
vading hordes onto the floor as fresh recruits to
tackle me. I had previously left my so-
called bed for the floor. Daylight finally came,
and it marked the dawn of a new world's rec-
ord for me. It was the longest and worst
night"! had ever put in. I dressed and got
Baedeker and was not surprised at the way he
describes the people of Antioch — "The popu-
lation, consisting of Greeks and Syrian ele-
ments are of a restless character."

When Moore woke up I read that sentence
to him and suggested that we should probably
always remember what it was that made them
restless. The sim hadn't risen yet, but I found
my way down to the stables and the yards be-
low. As early as it was, the town and the
markets were astir. For a long time I watched
the curious bargaining.

For instance, just about sun-up, an old Arab
and two sons came into the yard with a very
old donkey, which must have been laden with
five or six hundred pounds of some kind of
dusty grain. The feeble old Arab left imme-
diately and went away into the town. The
sons spread out the grain for exhibition, but

[64]

ANTIOCH TO ALEPPO

appeared as diffident as if they had never seen
it. The father, it appeared, had gone off now
to get buyers to come and see his grain, which
he said represented the year's crop. I was
anxious to see the return of this old agricul-
turalist of a type so different from the farmers
I had known so intimately in the west. Pres-
ently the old Bedouin, with two buyers, re-
turned. The latter seemed to understand each
other. They lifted the grain in their hands, ex-
amined it minutely, and then slightingly threw
it back.

The old farmer grabbed up handfuls and
winnowed them to show its excellence, but the
buyers feigned they were going away disgust-
ed. At last the old man made a tearful appeal
and the bargain comedy was well on. The old
man asked the buyers to place their own value
on the grain ; it was the last crop he would ever
raise; he was in rags, he pleaded, and he was
only asking a pittance to encourage his sons
to go on where he was now leaving off. A
more dramatic appeal was never made to a
jury. But it fell on deaf ears. I was ready
to buy the crop and give it back to him, had I
been nearer home. But it was a poor place to
show money, so I swallowed my feelings while

[65]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

the old man was weeping away his easily dried
tears to await another cold-hearted buyer.

After that there was little to do and it was a
relief when we left the old creeping, scratch-
ing town, jammed full of restless people.

We hadn't found anything that we could eat,
and were beginning to get restless ourselves.
We were to wait for Thompson at the junction
of the Aleppo road at Cam Khan (Inn) for
twenty-four hours. If he did not come within
that time we were to go on to Aleppo. Mr.
Sneddon had returned with the carriage and
the soldiers to Alexandretta and going on to
the Khan we waited. There was absolutely
nothing to do. We tried to sleep on a veranda
which was directly on the road. Our revolvers
were handy and we felt safe from human be-
ings, but that was all. After a few hours we
again sat up just for spite.

Camels passed ; several hundred at a time, in
single file, as silently as if they were ghosts.
They were heavily laden with liquorice root,
and the only noise that came from them was
now and then the squeaking of a pack. At the
head of each long line of them were a dozen or
so small donkeys, like a school of minnows lead-
ing a great band of whales. At two in the

[66]

ANTIOCH TO ALEPPO

morning a few jackals on the crest of the hill
one hundred yards from us, howled and barked
as if there were hundreds of them. In the dis-
tance we heard hyenas laughing in answer.

Then came more camels. Three hundred
and eighty-six of them passed in silent proces-
sion, making scarcely a noise with their mushy
feet and all slowly weaving towards the coast,
laden with liquorice root. They didn't know
it, but they were part of the Tobacco Trust.
The whole of this load of liquorice root was
for shipment to America, there to be spat upon
the ground by the chewers of tobacco. It
seemed quite possible that a large part of what
the three himdred and eighty-six camels had
on their backs, my old friend Bill Sterrett of
Texas would use up in the next winter alone,
and that if Bill would quit chewing, the per-
centage of camels that pass along the old
Roman road would be noticeably less in the
future. Up to date I have not heard that Bill
has reformed.

Morning came and we tried, by signs, to
show that we wanted to eat ; but it was hard to
make ourselves understood, and we lived on the
scantiest rations through the hot day.

As evening came we saw some camel drivers

[67]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

eating grapes, and our signs, more strenuous
from hunger, made them imderstand that we
wanted some. They gave and we tried to
pay, but the chief of the party let us know
that we were welcome without price. He
then took us to where there were more grapes.
Finally we found a native who could talk three
or four words of English, and for these words
we made his old age peaceful and prosperous
by reason of the currency we heaped upon him.
He soon began, with this capital at his back, to
order men here and there, and through our sign
language and the word "Haleb" (Aleppo) , he
understood where we wanted to go. We could
see, however, because we were such easy marks,
that he hated to understand. But about seven
o'clock he kept saying the word "Post,"
"Post," and at last we gathered that at nine
o'clock that evening the post coach on the way
to Aleppo, would stop at the Khan and that
he would, with our money, approach the big
Khowaja (the conductor who carries the mail)
and with more money we might bribe the great
Turkish official to let us ride in the coach.
Moore and I were skeptical about this, but cu-
riously enough at nine o'clock along came the
stage coach. The horses, four abreast, were

[68]

ANTIOCH TO ALEPPO

on the dead run. Four soldiers galloped with
the coach, two at each side, armed with old-
fashioned rifles. The stage halted, and with
great pomp the Director General alighted.
He was ushered up on the porch of the post-
office, where a feast of unusual proportion was
spread for him. Arthur and I were kept back
till the briber, with our money, went forth. He
began bowing twenty feet before he got to the
great man and finally crawled up to him as he
made known his mission. He dropped two
gold pieces in his hands, and the agent, with
much dignity, was open to reason. Finally we
were brought forward and came like two
whipped servants, but we were for doing any-
thing for the opportunity to get away.

So after giving more gold, we were ordered
into the low leather-covered carry-all and there
lay in a half leaning, half sitting position,
afraid to complain for fear we should be put
off after all. But the gold had done its work
and we were not disturbed. They were now
hitching four stallions to the nondescript
vehicle — two grays and two bays. They were
better looking animals than we had seen on the
carriages at Beyrout, or in fact at any place
along the coast. They were hard and well

[69]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

kept, and wanted to get at their task. New
soldiers took up their positions at each side of
the coach. The driver climbed into his seat and
beside him sat the man of dignity with a heavy
rifle in his lap and our gold in his pocket. A
groom pulled the mane from under the horses'
collars and then with a peculiar low note from
the driver, we were off at a gallop. At first
we thought it was a runaway, but seeing no at-
tempt was made to hold the horses back we
came to the right conclusion that that was the
regular schedule.

It was a wild night's ride. I was lying in a
cramped position on the mail sacks, but the
thrill of the rough rapid pace made my cheeks
first hot then cold. In the dim moonlight the
Arab soldiers galloping beside us, were like
silhouettes and rode like our Indians of the far
west. Down a long slope we dashed into a
valley. My eyes were fairly popping with ex-
citement, though Arthur was dozing. Of
course we had the best of the mail sacks, the
soldiers had spread out to detect any possible
danger. While the four stallions were gallop-
ing true and strong, the driver suddenly yelled
a long "Yeo!" "Yeo!" "Yeo!" I saw the
soldiers dash ahead, drew my revolver and

[70]

ANTIOCH TO ALEPPO

shook Arthur, but couldn't wake him. But
just as I expected to hear shots, I heard the
gurgling of camels, and these heavy laden,
tired-looking creatures were beaten out of the
mail coach's right of way.

Our route then wound around the base of the
mountain, and I could see a large band of jack-
als. At a halt, after passing himdreds of
camels, we changed horses, and took on three
dark bays or chestnuts, and one gray, and off
we were again. Soon we passed a camel train.
One of the beasts, a yoimg one apparently,
growled plaintively when he fell in a gutter and
his heavy pack turned him in his fall till his
light-colored belly loomed up in the moon-
light. Feet in the air, he struggled while the
Bedouins laughing, tried to quiet him.

We changed horses again before daylight,
and a pup that himg around the horses was
presented to me by the agent, and I tried to be
polite in refusing the gift. We had a chance
to stretch our legs, and Moore began to com-
ment on the wonderful beauties of the ride.
He had slept through it all, but that made no
difference to him. He really thought he had
been awake and wanted to know if I had seen
things that had not happened.

[71]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

The sun rose hot, and at first felt comfort-
able after the rush of the night. The roadbed
was now strewn with small, roimd, loose stones
about the size of hens' eggs and worn smooth
by the cushioned feet of camels.

The last change of horses was truly remark-
able. There were only three this time and they
looked like old moth-eaten silk rugs. Two
were white and silvery; the third was a bay
with a coat as bright as gold. We saw them
gallop over the stones for six or eight miles,
and when they stopped for water, the bay
pawed the stones and had to be held while the
others drank. We both commented time and
again on what our best horses would become
under such conditions. From their appear-
ance, these animals were of great age, and cer-
tainly their usage had been the hardest possible.
Still, their legs were as clean as those of a colt.

Our entry into Aleppo was made in the fore-
noon. The sun was as hot as it could possibly
be, without burning things — and we came in
on the dead run. They put us out in the
suburbs, because the mail officer (honest man!)
was afraid we should be seen. The mail driver
made us imderstand by his motions and the
word "Arabeeye" (carriage), that he would

[72]

ANTIOCH TO ALEPPO

send a vehicle for us to take us to the best
hotel, so we sat down at the side of the chalky-
like clay streets, in the shadow of an artificial-
looking fig tree, and eventually, the carriage
coming, we drove into the town.

For years I had imagined an entirely differ-
ent Aleppo. I had pictured it as built in an
oasis of the desert, with beautiful wide streets,
clean and well-kept and lined with palm trees.
I was wrong. In reality it is a city built of
stone and mud. It has been tumbled down so
many times by earthquakes, that it looks as
tired as the old Roman road which leads up to
it. Our driver turned into a small street not
wide enough for two carriages to pass. The
dogs were more plentiful than they were in
Constantinople, and the stench was much
worse. On the faces of all the young people
were the sores of the Aleppo button, and on
those of the older ones were the scars left bv
that disease, and this added to our general de-
pression. We were half starved, and tired out
from the night ride and the effects of the sun.
Our spirits were low. To tell the truth we were
thoroughly broken down. We had cold feet,
although it was 125 degrees in the shade. The
stench grew worse, and as the streets narrowed

[73]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HOKSE

down, and the people followed the carriage to
have a better look at us, I said to Moore, that
if the driver stopped then, and asked us to get
out at a hotel, I believed I would coUapse. I
had already given up. The letters which I had
in my pocket and
the Irade permit-
ting me to export
horses and mares,
were losing their
stimulating pow-
er. For years
my idea had been
so different of
Aleppo, that the
shock was more
than I could
stand. Then
while this
thought was in
my mind, in the
midst of the
very worst street and next to a most ill-smell-
ing shop, our driver halted, and motioned to
us to get out. Arthur refused to get out of the
carriage and as one of us had to do so, I did and
walked in to what they called a hotel. They
[74]

ANTIOCH TO ALEPPO

were driving a mangy dog and a dozen
puppies out of the room which was to be ours,
but I couldn't take it. A man came and asked
me if I could speak French, and although I
couldn't, I held on to him by the arm. The
natives could not understand "America' ' or rec-
ognize that word. Then Moore suggested
"MacAndrews & Forbes,'' and the man who
spoke French took us to his place, where we
met a protector in the form of a yoimg En-
glishman of the name of Beard, and we hung
to him on both sides. He took us to a bet-
ter hotel, where they had a garden; that is,
in the court, they had a potted palm or two,
and in a little dusty corral a fat-tailed sheep, a
donkey and a few chickens. It was as clean
as a hotel could be in Aleppo, and most of the
foreign consuls ate there of evenings; some
of them slept there two or three nights of the
week — and then tried some other place. I had
not had, to my knowledge, any sleep on the
coach and Moore refused to admit that he had
had any, so we immediately went to bed.

The next morning at daylight Jack Thomp-
son came, with our interpreter and the guns.
He had lost one of his teams over a high preci-
pice and he and the interpreter had almost lost

[75]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

their lives. A camel train had crowded them
as they came along in the night, and just as
the team fell over the bank and tore itself out
of the old harness, the men jumped out in the
nick of time. Barring this incident Thompson
had some sleep and was feeling better than
either Moore or myself. He was quite excited
at being in Aleppo.

[76]

CHAPTER VII

AKMET HAFFEZ AND THE WAR MARE

Even the arrival of Jack Thompson with
the guns could not get me out of the blues. Of
course we were in Aleppo (not the Aleppo I
had imagined!) , but it did not seem likely that
we should get much further. We had had
nothing but discouragement from the MacAn-
drews & Forbes people and I began to believe
that our journey was over without the accom-
plishment of what I thought I was so well
equipped to carry out. I was utterly down in
the mouth. Moore and Thompson evidently
thought that something should be done to cheer
me up (though they themselves were pretty
melancholy) and so decided that if they could
get me to some shop with an atmosphere of
horse about it, I might be brought into a better
frame of mind. Accordingly, with our inter-
preter, and with Beard, as a guide, we started

[77]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

for the shops where they made the saddles and
bridles, and horse trimmings which were used
in the desert. In the poorly ventilated bazaars
hundreds of Bedouins crowded aroimd to look
at us. The ignorant stared while the better
bred greeted us politely. To see three stran-
gers, the smallest of whom stood six feet one
and a half inches, was a sight to them. They
peered at us genteely, and asked the interpreter
if we were "Engleese." They shook their
heads, as he explained that we were "Americs"
and wanted to know where "Americ" was.

While we were at the saddlery place, in the
crowd of Bedouins looking on, I saw one who
looked a little darker than the rest and whose
teeth were peculiarly white. I remembered
reading in one of the Blunt's books, that the
Anezeh tribe had peculiarly white, chalk-like
teeth and I at once told Ameene, the interpre-
ter, to ask this Bedouin if he knew anything
about the Anezeh. We had heard at Beyrout
that the tribe was then two or three hundred
miles south of Palmyra. Moore, in a good-
humored, sarcastic way, said: "Here, if you
are going to try and find the Anezeh in Aleppo,
I will quit you; this man never heard of the
Anezeh, he is a camel driver." While the

[78]

AKMET HAFFEZ AND THE MARE

translation was made to the Arab his eyes grew
very expressive and round, and he said in
return. "The Anezeh are within ten hours'
ride of Aleppo; I am a member of one of the
sub-tribes and have just come from them."

At this Moore and Beard laughed and went
off in disgust to look at some silk rugs. I let
them go without a word. In a moment I saw
another Bedouin, an older man with a grayish
beard, but with the same peculiar white teeth,
and from him, too, I inquired the whereabouts
of the Anezeh. His answer confirmed the
story of the first and he added something that
brought me back to my normal spirits. He
declared that Hashem Bey, the Sheikh of all
Sheikhs, was then in Aleppo paying a secret
visit to a man named Akmet Haffez, the diplo-
matic ruler of the desert. He offered to take
us to the house of Akmet Haffez. Jack
Thompson's eyes began to sparkle again, and
Ameene grew excited. If this were true, it
seemed beyond a doubt that we could buy our
horses directly from the Anezeh tribe itself. It
was no longer a question of going to Deyr.

We lost no time in getting into a
carriage in which we drove through the
narrow, dirty streets for a long way, passing

[79]

MY QUEST OF THE AKAB HORSE

old crumbling grave-stones in the middle of
the town and then to the outskirts, and up to a
two-story stone and mud house. Our cavass
went inside, was gone five minutes, and re-
turned. We were taken upstairs to an inside
large room showing every sign of wealth. The
furniture was spotted with inlaid pearl, and
the divan, which ran all round the room, was
of purple plush with gold and silver ornaments.
Scattered over the divan were rifles that looked
ready for action. Before we had time to think
that this was strange, as only the soldiers were
allowed rifles, everybody else in the room stood
up and we too arose. Then slowly and with a
stride like that of Sir Henry Irving, a noble,
elderly looking Arab came forward. Any-
where he would have attracted instant atten-
tion. He looked like a bronze Grover Cleve-
land in his last years. His eyes fairly glowed
with smiles as he bowed low on the magnificent
silk rugs. This was Akmet Haffez, the ruling
Prince of all the Desert ! He took a seat on the
divan and as servants put soft pillows beside
him, he pointed to me to take a seat at his right.
His slippers fell carelessly off as he drew his
feet up under him in Turkish fashion. In-
stantly a slave was pouring into small thumb-

[80]

AKMET HAFFEZ AND THE MARE

like cups cofFee which we had to drink, lest an
insult might be offered.

Ameene, our interpreter, now spoke, and
told him why our sudden call was made and
Akmet Haffez told us that Hashem Bey, the
Sheikh of the Anezeh, had been his guest for
ten days, but had gone the night before, back
to his tribe, which was encamped at a distance
of ten or twelve hours' ride.

The dignified old gentleman then learned we
were the people who had been in Antioch three
nights before.

"These then," he asked, "are the people, one
of whom has an Irade from the Sultan of Tur-
key, and letters from the one Great Sheikh of
all the Americ tribes?"

"Yes," he was told.

The old man's eyes filled with tears as he
looked at me, and his slaves and secretaries
grew more interested, when turning toward
Ameene he said:

"Then you have called on me before call-
ing on the Governor of Aleppo and Syria.
No such honor was ever paid to a Bedouin be-
fore, and if I should live to be one hundred
years old, my smallest slave would honor me
more for this visit."

[81]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

He was much moved and so was I; not so
much because I seemed so unexpectedly to have
attained my fondest hopes, as because I had
met with a man. It was difficult to find exact-
ly the right thing to say through an interpreter,
but this fine old Bedouin was equal to the
occasion. Repressing his emotion he said with
a deprecating smile :

"But after all you have not come here to see
men. Better than that you have come to see
horses, and I would be selfish if I kept you
longer from seeing the greatest mare of our
country — ^the war mare of the Great Hashem
Bey — ^the mare from whose back he killed,
among others, his most distinguished enemy."

A servant was dispatched for her. She was,
Akmet Haffez said, a present to him from the
Great Sheikh, who had just been his guest;
that in their religious custom no present could
equal her; nothing but a gift from Allah, him-
self, could surpass her.

The servant returned and, led by the hand
of this old man who was so impressing his in-
dividuality upon us, we went down to the court
yard. There stood a black slave groom with
two mares, a chestnut and a small bay. Sev-
eral hundred Bedouins and townspeople had

[82]

AKMET HAFFEZ AND THE MAKE

gathered, but they fell back leaving an empty
space for the mares.

The war mare, the present from the Supreme
Ruler, was the chestnut. She seemed to

Hy Royal Preeeut, Wadduda, the War Mare.wltb Said Abdalla

be fretting to get out of the only town she
had ever been in. In her highly carried tail,
I saw some blue beads tied gracefully in her
hair. I knew they were to keep off the "Evil
Eye." I went up to her, but she put back
her ears as if she would bite or strike or kick.
It appears that I, in European dress, was the
worst object she had ever seen. Her name
they told me was "Wadduda," meaning love ;
that she was a Seclawie Al Abed, seven years
[88]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

old and had been the favorite war mare of
Hashem Bey for four years. She didn't like
the town, she wanted to go — and those who told
me pointed to the desert.

Two fine looking young men came up.
They were introduced as sons of Akmet Haf-
fez, who proudly referred to them as horse-
men. The crowd was dense by this time, and
the excitement ran high when the Bedouins
were told that I had called on Akmet Haff ez
before I had called on Nazim Pasha, the Gov-
ernor. Many of the rank and file kissed the
old Sheikh's hand in joy. Others came close
and touched their cheeks to his.

In the meantime, the older son Ali, who had
galloped down a stony street on the war mare,
cried out and was turning to come back. In
a moment, she came tearing down toward us
all afire, and the bounding tassels around her
knees, looked like silk skirts. Such action
over such rolling rocks! Her tail was high
and her eyes fairly sparkled !

The son then rode the bay, a smaller Abeyeh
Sherrakieh, with the greatest jibbah or fore-
head, I ever saw. This small mare had even
more fire than the other and we were afraid
for a moment that some child would be hurt

[84]

AKMET HAFFEZ AND THE MARE

in the midst of her play and frolic. After this
exhibition Akmet Haffez led the way to the
court of his stables across the streets through
the gates in a high mud wall and ordered the
mares to be taken into an enclosure where he
had many horses picketed. Before the big
gates were closed he called by name several of
the elder Bedouins and as they came through
they touched and kissed his hand.

The gates were then closed, and he stopped
and extended his open hand as if to grasp mine.
As I advanced to take his hand, his other
gracefully warded me back. All this time the
old Sheikh was talking in an emotional voice
to the interpreter. I was fearful for the mo-
ment that I had offended him in some way,
though I could hardly think how. I looked
upon Ameene to explain. I saw the inter-
preter's face grow full of astonishment and
wonder, and turning to me he said:

"It appears that we have made a diplomatic
blunder in calling on this man before we have
called on the Governor, and he feels so deeply
affected by it, that he wants you to take his
hand, but not unless you can accept the great
war mare as his present to you, with the
Bedouin boy that now holds her. Her name is

[85]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

to remain the same, Wadduda. He hopes that
when you speak the name it will bear living
witness of his love to you and that the gift
and its acceptance will be the forming of a
friendship and later of a brotherhood that will
never end."

I was so much concerned at this, that I asked
Ameene if I could accept such a present. The
interpreter told me that under ordinary
circumstances 1 could not, but under these
conditions, I would insult Akmet if I did not
comply with his wish.

So I accepted the mare and the hand of
brotherhood and the old Bedouin ruler seemed
very happy. He told me that no money could
buy the blue beads from the mare's tail, and
that, for the moment at least, seemed true.
When Akmet Haffez learned that Thompson
was my traveling companion he immediately
presented him with a young gray stallion. I
am sorry that I did not have a moving picture
machine so as to have photographed the antics
of Jack when he realized that this horse was
his. But in his demonstrations of joy, he
brushed by and reminded me that a little
over an hour before I was suflfering intensely

[86]

Nasln Pasha, His Excelleucjr the Qovcrnor ot Aleppo

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

from a malady called "blues" and asked me,
as he pinched my side, if I had them now.

Akmet Haffez was soon dispatching a mes-
senger on a Delule (racing camel) to the Ane-
zeh. When we inquired why, he said he was
telling them not to move tent, or go into war,
for he was coming the next day with us and
that it was his first visit to his tribes in nearly
thirty years.

Accompanied by Akmet Haffez we then
called upon Nazim Pasha, the Governor of
Aleppo. The Governor received us warmly
despite our break in etiquette. He sent for
coffee and cigarettes, and lit mine for me. We
talked of many things. He held a letter from
President Roosevelt in one hand, and pointed
to God with the other. Then he said a prayer.
He told us that God must have brought us to
Akmet Haffez. At this point the old Bedouin
slid off the divan, and knelt in prayer. The
Governor continued that he wanted Haffez to
take us to the Great Anezeh, at which Haffez
slipped off the lounge again, like a moxmtain
sheep, and again knelt in prayer. When told
of the present I had received the Governor
bowed and touched his forehead, issuing a
characteristic grunt in a deep bass. He was

[88]

AKMET HAFFEZ AND THE MARE

anxious to see my Irade, and again he seemed
to ask a blessing as it was being translated to
him. He told us as Akmet Haffez had al-
ready done, the story we had heard in Constan-
tinople, of his brown stallion, a Maneghi
Sbeyel, a present to him from the combined
tribes. He insisted that we must come the
next day to his stables and see the horse.

When we got back to the hotel Moore was
there, and he began to laugh and asked us if
we had found the Anezeh. We pretended for
a while that we had been fooled, but he saw
that we were enthusiastic over something and
we could not hide the truth. None of us could
sleep that night, because we were to start for
the Anezeh tribe the next afternoon, where
we should see members of every big tribe of
Bedouins that go to make up the Anezeh peo-
ple. And all this due to a simple question
about a Bedouin and his white teeth.

[89]

CHAPTER VIII

THE WAR MARE GREETS THE DESERT

At ten the next morning we went with
Akmet Haffez to the Governor's residence.
Nazim Pasha had promised to let us see the
"Pride of the Desert," the great brown stal-
lion presented to him by the Bedouins. I was
glad to have that opportunity for Mr. Forbes
had already told me of the horse as you will
remember ; but the heat was stifling, the reflec-
tion of the sun from the red and white sand
was killing and I was anxious to get off to the
Anezeh with Akmet Haffez.

Frankly I did not expect much of the "Pride
of the Desert." I really resented the waste of
time involved in this call on the Governor;
Especially hard was it to go through the mo-
tions of drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
I thought the time would never come when all
the necessary eastern hospitalities would be
over, but they came to an end at last and we

[90]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

were taken to a balcony of the palace to see
the Governor's horses.

Right now I want to apologize. I had not
known what I was to see or what I was to re-
ceive. It did not seem at all probable that the
"Pride of the Desert" would amount to much
— ^but when he was brought to the court yard
I apologized to myself as I am doing to
you now. We forgot all about heat and sun
reflection. We could only think of -the horse.

He was of the pure Maneghi Sbeyel strain
and what a stocky fellow he wasl He was
powerful enough for any purpose, especially
for a long killing race where weight was to be
carried. There was not a white hair on him,
and Akmet Haffez began on his fingers to
count the stallion's pedigree through his dams'
side, each one of which had been the greatest
mare of her time. Other horses were shown,
but we remembered only the brown stallion.

And here came the second surprise. Just as
we were leaving the Governor's palace, he
asked me to accept the brown stallion as his
present. I had taken the war mare from Haf-
fez, he said, and so I should accept this horse
from him. This seemed to be beyond reason.
The Governor was a poor man, and we had

[92]

THE WAR MARE IN THE DESERT

heard of the failure of the Italian Government
to secure the horse, although a large price had
been offered for him. But the Governor was
firm.

"You have accepted," said he, "the present of
the war mare, Wadduda, from Akmet Haff ez ;
you must accept this horse as a present from

me."

So I did, but later in the day I sent to Hick-
mut Bey, the Governor's son, as a present, a
check for one himdred French pounds.
Honors were therefore easy, but nevertheless
I had had presented to me on the eve of my
start for the desert, a mare and a stallion which
I could not have purchased with all my letters
of credit.

The rest of the day was taken up in pre-
paring for the journey to the desert with Haf-
fez. At five o'clock we had left Aleppo. I
rode Wadduda; Haffez was on a bay, four
years old, a Hamdani Simri; Thompson con-
tented himself with his gray, and Moore strad-
dled an Abeyeh Sherrakieh mare. One of
Haffez's sons rode the "Pride of the Desert."
A priest was sent as a secretary, and Ameene,
of course, accompanied us.

The Governor had picked twelve soldiers to

[98]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

go as a guard, but I suggested that there was
no reason for a guard when Akmet Haff ez was
with us ; his presence was more than an army.
The suggestion made an instant hit and when
I asked the reason Haffez explained that the
Bedouins had a poor opinion of such Euro-
peans as they had seen because they always
came to the desert surrounded by soldiers.
The Bedouins believed that all Europeans
were cowards. So, save for the rifle which I
was carrying to present to Ilashem Bey, we
were without arms. Several camels with tents
and provisions, had gone on with cooks and

4

extra camel men. It was a gala occasion.
Akmet Haffez had not been outside of Aleppo
for thirty years and, as he rode by my side, like
a fine old Indian chief, his followers who lined
the streets, were full of enthusiasm. It was a
great evening. Still one thing bothered me.
I had not yet made friends with my mare. She
fretted and « was nervous. I was on her back
without the flowing robes usually worn by the
riders she was used to. Jack and Arthur had
donned Arab costume, but at the last moment
I could not give up my flannel shirt and my
comfortable ragged coat and trousers. So I

[94]

THE WAR MARE IN THE DESERT

broke the rules of the desert and went as I was
dressed.

I argued to myself that some time Wadduda
would have to get used to me and my clothes
and that she had best begin at once. So I let
her fret. We rode on for miles over dirt and
rock and Wadduda still seemed fretful. She
wanted something ; that was evident, but what
it was I could not quite make out. Then sud-
denly I was enlightened.

Just as the big red sun was setting we came
to the desert. Wadduda stopped as if she
were paying some tribute to the closing day.
The faint roadway now seemed to disappear
and before us was a vast barren plain. The sky
was of a soft blue, tinted to gold by the sun,
which had just set. I turned in my Oregon-
made saddle, as easily as I could, that I might
see where the rest of the caravan was. The
mare did not notice my turning. With a quick
and graceful toss of the head, she began to
play. I sat deep down in my saddle and let
her frolic uninterrupted. She finally stopped
short, and snorted twice.

Turning slightly to the left she started gal-
loping with a delightful spring. It was the
return home, the call of the wild life with its

[95]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

thrills of wars and races; with its beautiful
open air, as compared with the musty stuffed
corral she had been picketed in. She was get-
ting away from civilization and back to the
open. Once in a while she stopped short, ap-
parently to scent the rapidly cooling atmos-
phere. Now and then she pranced, picking her
way between camel thistles. Her ears were
alert ; her eyes were blazing with an expression
of intense satisfaction. All this time, I found
by my wet cheeks, that I had been crying with-
out knowing it. I was wrought up to a state of
much excitement. I was again a boy and felt
the presence of my parents, and recalled the
stories of the Arab horses, they used to tell me
when I was a child. I remembered the draw-
ings I had made of them as a boy. It was hard
to realize that I was I, and that I was astride
the most distinguished mare of the desert. I
seemed then to realize what she was and what
she meant to me. My face was dripping again
and I felt glad I was alone.

Wadduda had stopped short again and was
scanning the horizon. I touched the mare with
my heels, but she did not move. She was
thinking. Of what, who knows? Perhaps of
her wars; or of combats on the desert, or of

[96]

THE WAR MARE IN THE DESERT

the keen edge of the Bedouin lance given when
she had seen both horse and rider fall from
the thrust of the spear of the Great Sheikh who
had ridden her.

So for a long time we waited together — ^the
mare and I, in the gathering dusk, and as we
waited I almost wished that we could always
be alone. The call of the desert came strong
to both of us then.

But we were not to be left alone for long.
The mare and I had ridden far in advance of
the caravan, but now the people were gallop-
ing along in an effort to catch up. They soon
reached us and Akmet Haffez, who would not
let me go astray in the desert, took his place
on my left, and so we rode and talked on and
on into the beautiful night. I was tired from
the excitement of the secret which only Wad-
duda and I knew and it was a relief to have
Moore and Thompson tell me something that
rested me. We were going to stop about mid'
night at the camp of a cousin of Akmet Haffez.
We were to have a midnight dinner and start
before sun-up toward the Anezeh.

But it was after midnight when we came to
the singing and joyous Bedouins, who were

[9T]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

shouting "Akmet HaffezI" ^'Akmet HaflPezl''
as we dismounted rather stiffly.

I helped take the saddle off my mare, and
then we were ushered into a tall, cone-shaped
mud house and escorted to a divan where the
quilts and rugs were thicker. Before us, face
down, on the clean, beautiful quilts, was the
cousin of Akmet Haff ez. He was mumbling
a prayer and our interpreter softly translated
it. The prayer was a beautiful sentiment.
The petitioner was asking God to release him
ever after from work so that he might stand
at the caravan routes and tell all generations
of the great honor that had been paid to him
by us who were going to eat his rice and melons
and who were to distinguish him further by
sleeping under his shelter. It is true that the
prayer was more eloquently thankful than
most hosts would indulge in for a party so
big and so hungry, but at the close of it we
were led out into the yard where all his cattle
and goats and sheep were resting and the sight
of them made us more cheerful. Then we
were taken into the cone-shaped mud house and
there was a feast, long to be remembered.

It was spread on low tables about a foot
from the ground, with short-legged little

[98]

THE WAR MARE IN THE DESERT

wicker stools for us to sit on. On the tables
was spread bread about an eighth of an inch
thick and this served as a table cloth. The
bread baked on rocks in the sun, was made of
barley and wheat rolled, and now and then in
eating it you came to a full stop ; a period as it
were, consisting of a small gravel. In the cen-
ter of the table was a large mound of finely-
cooked rice and on top of this mound was a
roasted head of sheep. The carcass, nicely
roasted, was strewn around the moimd of rice
at intervals. There were red, yellow and green
melons; egg plant, chicken cut up fine, and
clabber milk of the goat, sheep, camels and
cows. There were grape leaves rolled with
rice in the center and there were fine light green
grapes and fresh figs. To drink there was a
mixture of sour milk and water.

When we sat down, I saw Akmet Haffez
rolling up his sleeves. I saw no plates,
knives or forks, or even spoons, but I took the
hint quicker than Jack or Arthur. Possibly I
had always lived nearer to the groimd than
they. Akmet Haffez had no sooner plunged
into the rice than I did the same. His motions
were easy to imitate, still the Bedouins laughed
heartily at the quick way I mastered their

[99]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

simple art of eating. We ripped and tore
at the table cloth and at the other dishes for
more than an hour, and then having washed
our hands out of a peculiar brass pitcher, we
returned to our sleeping rooms. The program
was to lie down and sleep till about three
o'clock, when we were to start again and ride,
reaching the Anezeh, we hoped, before it got
very hot. At three o'clock we were saddling
the horses and were soon off.

A couple of hours after sun-up, we began to
realize that we were really in the desert. Two
Arabs on mares, a gray and bay, came gallop-
ing toward us. They were carrying spears
that looked fifty feet long. As they ap-
proached Haffez, they stopped and said "Sa-
1am Alakum — "Peace be with you." They
talked for some minutes, when Ameene told
me that some of the Anezeh had gone across
the Euphrates to war, but that Hashem Bey
had left his cousin a few miles on where the
latter would receive us. We were disappoint-
ed that we were not to meet Hashem at once,
but there was really no room for complaint,
and with the couriers with the long spears we
went on.

It was about eleven o'clock when we reached

[100]

THE WAR MARE IN THE DESERT

the top of a small knoll. I was sore and tired
for I had not ridden for so long in years and
the heat must have been telling somehow on
my expression, for Akmet Haff ez yelled to me
to cheer up and pointing on ahead shouted:
"Anezehl" I looked, but could see nothing.
After a while, through the haze I noticed
that the plain was covered with blackish tents
and camels. And then the whole plain seemed
to be covered with camels. In the distance
they looked like row after row of tea-kettles.
Wadduda was prancing. She had seen her
tribe first. Tired as I was, it was a thrilling
sight. It was the realization, at last, of a wish
that I had cherished since a small boy, and my
emotions got the best of me. We could see
horsemen racing here and there. They were
preparing to greet us and were getting into
holiday garb.

Frankly it was too much for me. I tried to
tell Akmet Haffez through the interpreter
what I felt and to thank him for what he had
done, but I am afraid I made a mess of it.
That kindly old man saw my emotion and
replied with all the native courtesy of the
desert combined with the manner of the true
gentleman. It was an honor to him, he said,

[101]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

that we had allowed him to introduce us to his
Anezeh.

We were now getting near to the outskirts
of the camp, and though I was as sore as an
Aleppo button looks, under the excitement I
urged on. We saw a big grass plot in front
of a large tent. Haffez rode straight for it
on his mare and as he dismounted, men came
out and kissed him on the cheeks. All of the
big officials had done this when an Arab took
my mare and I got off. I could hardly walk
and the heat was making me dizzy. I tried
to be unconcerned, but my hips and knees were
about broken. Sheikh after sheikh we met,
and we bowed and touched our right hands to
our lips and foreheads as they did, and then
shook hands. We were led in under a big re-
ception tent. The bridle from my mare was
brought in and tied to the center pole of the
tent, denoting that we were welcome. We
were at last among the Fedaan Anezeh, the
most warlike and most uncivilized race of
Bedouins in the world. To be frank again, I
was much overcome with emotion to realize that
we were in the tents of the greatest war tribe
of Bedouins and under possibly the most fav-
orable conditions possible.

[102]

less

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

Ameene felt that it was up to me to say
something. Too tired to stand, almost too
weak to talk from the heat, hunger and thirst,
still I leaned toward the interpreter, and asked
him to tell Akmet Haffez and the Anezeh, that
while I had been bom in the far western part
of what he called "Americ," I had realized,
ever since a small boy, that I was just as much
of an Arab as any in the desert and that now
that I had seen the Anezeh tribe, I felt I had
been one of its members all my life. I thanked
Akmet Haffez for bringing me to such a peo-
ple, for it was the supreme moment of my life.

Without hesitation, this old man reached
across the camel's saddle and with a voice full
of emotion said :

"No, the day is ours, not yours; ever since
the Anezeh became a tribe we have known that
one of us was missing. Now you have come
and the number is complete. To-day we cele-
brate the gathering of the entire tribe."

And thus was I received by the Anezeh.

[ 104 ]

CHAPTER IX

WE FEAST WITH THE ANEZEH AND BECOME BET-
TEE ACQUAINTED — INSPECTION AND PUE-
CHASE OF HORSES

This interchange of formalities and courte-
sies broke the ice and we instantly felt that we
were at home in the Bedouin camp. Our hosts
brought us a delicious drink of water mixed
with curdled milk of the sheep, goat and camel,
and we did not in the least mind that the water
was muddy or that the mixture was stirred in
a dirty pail with a dagger. We liked it all
the more. Presently the slave who makes the
coffee began to beat time on a large wooden
bowl with ornamental sides. The stick he used
was heavy, and in the noise there was a ring of
ragtime that was fascinating. No tune ever
impressed itself on me more than that weird
coffee beating, the muffle sound of which could
be heard a quarter of a mile.

Coffee galore was served, but I had to de-

[105]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

cline. Haffez explained that I did not drink
coffee, or smoke, but that he would take my
share, and the grim Bedouins smiled. Never
have I seen such a gathering as was seated
under the big flat-topped tent \ Bedouin after
Bedouin, as handsome warriors as one could
imagine, all with beards, except the young men
and boys and all so black that their high lights
were really blue.

Hashem Bey's cousin told us how sorry the
great Sheikh had been to leave before our ar-
rival, but that as the war was not believed to
be a serious one, he would return in a few
days with the 2,500 mounted men he had taken
away.

Our camels had now arrived, and our tents
were pitched facing the Sheikh's, and many
Bedouins were set to clearing the space of its
rocks.

They were anxious to see a letter from the
Governor of Aleppo to their Sheikh, and the
latter's secretary read it aloud. It must have
been a pretty strong document, for at inter-
vals everybody bowed, and touched their
mouths and forehead with their hand. Then
soon it was time for the feast. About two
o'clock four men came, carrying an immense

[106]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

pan with more than two washtubs full of boiled
rice on it, and on top of that a roast sheep.
We began to brighten up. More sour milk,
and grapes, and bread that looked like saddle
blankets followed the sheep. About twelve
Sheikhs ate with us at the first table. And
never was there such rice and mutton! We
must have consimied a third of it before it
was given over to the rank and file, who put
the crimp on the rest of it in short order. By
this time our tent was up, and full of Bedouins
looking at things. They were driven away by
Sheikh Ali, and we were invited to sleep,
which we did without being rocked. There
was a quiet air to the place which seemed more
restful, and in the morning I was up at day-
light looking over the horses picketed here and
there. Finally, picturesquely-dressed Bed-
ouins began to appear.

Not one of them was hurried. Everybody
walked slowly and with a dignified sway.
There was no rushing for the 8:17 train; there
was no hurrying for the ferryboat; there was
no worry over the market; there was no ex-
citement over politics. Until I learned better
that you cannot "hustle the East" this repose
(you cannot call it laziness) seemed very

[108]

THE FEAST WITH THE ANEZEH

strange. Later I began to like it. These big
handsome men with well-kept beards and
sparkling sharp eyes, seemed to have nothing
to do, but when you had watched them for a
while you could see how alert they are. They
were anxious to see our firearms and knives and
jewelry. They commented, with astonish-
ment, on my knowledge of the technical points
of their own horses. My pronimciation of
words was often bad, but they knew that I had
a fair knowledge of the different breeds and
they brought up stranger after stranger that
they might enjoy the astonishment of the lat-
ter when I went over the families of the Kham-
seh, or five great families of the Arab horse.
When the sketch books were opened, and I be-
gan to draw pictures of horses and men, their
joy was almost childlike.

Thompson and Moore had been exhibiting
their cameras, but after they had seen me draw
with just a plain pencil, they would have none
of the camera. They examined the pencil and
looked at its point. When they used it, they
said it only made marks, but when I took hold
of it it drew their horses, so it must be that I,
they argued, was better than the camera.

Our saddles were strange to them, especial*

[109]

MY QUEST OP THE ARAB HORSE

ly mine, an Oregon make with the latest cow-
boy seat. I drew them a picture, showing
what the horn was for, and after that,
wherever we went the first thing they wanted
me to do was to draw the picture of the cowboy
throwing the steer.

Soon after meeting Akmet Haffez I had
told him that I was not a government buyer
and, indeed was not a rich man. I made it
clear to him that while I was prepared to pay
good honest prices and did not propose to
**jew" anybody down, still I did not intend to
be cheated. Government agents do not have to
be particular about prices and consequently the
Anezeh have been spoiled. The money values
they set on their horses are sometimes aston-
ishing, considering what labor in the desert is
worth.

My old friend put his arm around my shoul-
ders and told me that he would tell everybody
we met and everybody whose horses we cared
to see, that, unless they thought enough of
him, Akmet Haffez and his friendship to sell
on reasonable terms, we would buy no horses
at all. And this he did in a speech to the great
throng of Bedouins present. I had come
there, he declared, to study the Arab horse in

[110]

THE FEAST WITH THE ANEZEH

his purity; that I was making pictures of him
as they had seen and that I was going to write
of his greatness.

"I have presented to this man," cried the
chief eloquently, "the great war mare which
came to me from your great Sheikh, Hashem

W

Juflt out of our tent squatted this young /

Bey. You know, as ali Bedouins know, that
no European could have purchased that mare
at any price (and here all his auditors grunted
their assent) , but I have given to him the mare
Wadduda, whose name means love and affec-
tion, and under that name I have given her to

[111]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

this man that she may be a living witness of
the affection for him, not only of myself but of
the whole Anezeh tribe. And in Aleppo the
Governor gave to him the Maneghi Sheyel
stallion, the *Pride of the Desert/ So now
treat the man as you would one of your own
tribe. Those of you who have for sale horses
that are * Chubby'* he will talk with, but other
horses need not be shown. Let it be a mat-
ter of your personal pride that he takes from
the desert only such horses and mares as the
Anezeh themselves would want to have — ^not
meaning only such animals as the European
governments would use."

Notwithstanding the friendship that had
been shown to us by everybody, there was con-
siderable disappointment among the Bedouins
at Akmet Haffez's strict order. As Arthur
and Jack remarked, it bound their hands so
that they could do no "gouging."

The first horse was brought for inspection
by a very old Bedouin. The animal was a
dark iron gray stallion, five years old, a Kehi-
lan Ajuz, the breed from which all other Kehi-
lans are off -shoots, and which is considered the
best of all the Kehilans. This yoimg horse

♦"Chubby," meaning **used for breeding purposes."

[112]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

was a powerful animal, but he had been in war
evidently while very young, and so had a few
bad splints. I was afraid to take him. When
I asked to see him gallop, his owner, the old
Bedouin, a small man far under the average
height, riding a saddle without stirrips, flung
himself on the horse like an animal and gal-
loped over the rocky groimd in a big circle.
The horse was all action and held his tail high.
The faster the horse moved the better he went,
and I found it hard, though it had to be done,
to refuse him just because of a few splints.

When horses were brought for us to in-
spect, Akmet Haff ez told me not to seem over-
pleased, no matter how beautiful the animal
was. If, after I had looked a horse over and
decided that I wanted him, I was to wink at
him and then, if the horse could be bought un-
der our conditions and no others, he would get
him.

When the Bedouins were showing a horse,
or mare, it was quite a relief to see an animal,
where the defects, if any, were never con-
cealed. They just brought the horse and
squatted down by him. No attempt was made
to straighten his mane. If he had a blemish,

[114]

THE FEAST WITH THE ANEZEH

they were more than likely to back him up to
you. so the blemish was the first thing you saw.

All yoimg horses which were brought, Haf-
fez measured from the centre of the knee j<)int
to the hair line of the hoof, and applied that
measurement four times in the direction of the
horse's withers, to see how much more it would
grow, if any. While the Bedouins consider a
horse over fifteen hands high inferior to one
under fifteen hands, I told them that if possi-
ble, I wanted to get large animals as people
in America preferred size.

On the second day, a light gray horse colt,
four years old, was shown. He had been bred
by Sheikh Ali and was a Seglawi Obeyran.
His dam was one of the favorite war mares of
Hashem Bey and his sire was an Abeyan Sher-
rak. Sheikh Ali, Akmet Haffez, Ameene, the
interpreter, and myself took seats on the
ground and while the other Bedouins kept
away from us we bargained for him.
Sheikh Ali thought that owing to the
animal's distinguished dam he ought to have
more money than Haifez was willing to pay.
I was afraid that Haffez was drawing a line
so fine that we would make enemies in the
desert, where I wanted only friends. After a

[ 115 ]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

long argument, Haffez got up and went away.
Sheikh All followed him, and Haffez, turn-
ing, extended his hand, but the other Sheikh
would not take it. I asked the interpreter
what they meant and he told me that Akmet
HafiTez did not believe the price asked for the
horse was a true estimate of their friendship,
and that the other man insisted that Haffez,

who had not been to the desert for many years,
was ignorant of the recent prices which the
Anezeh had been getting for horses. Haffez
had replied that he knew fbe price that every
horse had brought and that on the price of
[116]

THE FEAST WITH THE ANEZEH

every horse sold out of the desert, he, in Alep-
po, got a commission of five poimds, just as
Hashem Bey, the Sheikh of the Anezeh did.
On this occasion he said he was not taking any
commission, and that he would not allow me
to buy any horse except at a fair price.

We three Americans were astonished at this
performance, and so was Ameene. The lat-
ter had seen the miserable gang of cut-throats
around Beyrout that were trying to sell us
horses whose most exaggerated value would
have been about two pounds. Truly we were
in safe hands in the desert.

When I heard that there was only $20 dif-
ference between Akmet Haff ez and Sheikh Ali
on the price of the gray, I told Haff ez that we
were to be the guests of Sheikh Ali for three
days, and, as he would then have to feed all our
horses, camels and men I would like to buy
the horse, even against Haffez's will. So I
bought him. As I rode home, we f oimd out,
as Akmet Haff ez told us before we left Alep-
po, that the poorest horse we had, I had bought
against his wishes.

Late that afternoon a man came riding a re-
markable gray mare. She looked so different
from the other mares that I could hardly wait

[117]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

for Haffez. When I asked if she was "Chub-
by," the Bedouin smiled, and almost lauded,
when he said "Kefailan Ajuz," which is equiva-
lent to saj-ing, "Rather, she's the dam of all
that is chubby."

She was a picture, though she had no jibbah,
or bulging forehead. On the contrary her
forehead was as flat as a board, but her eyes
were far apart and set in the peculiar Japanese
slant. They were turned up at the outer cor-
ners like those of a chorus-girl with a 1907
[118]

THE FEAST WITH THE ANEZEH

make-up. There was the same stately dignity
about her that Wadduda had ; she looked like a
fine lady of quality in the presence of a lot of
cooks at an employment agency. In my ef-
forts to buy her, before Haffez got out of the
tent, the Bedouin smiled and laughed, and,
when Haffez came out, without looking to see
who was on her back, he too began to roll with
laughter. Then he looked at me as if urging
me on to buy her quick. Ameene began to
laugh, too, and finally explained that the joke
was on me. The mare it seems could not be
sold. She was famous from Nejd to Aleppo,
and was owned on shares by the Anezeh. She
had been ridden over simply to find out if we
would like to look at her last son, a colt two
years old. I asked if we could not break the
rule and still buy her, and all I got was another
laugh.

Neither the mare nor any of her daughters
could be sold, and all in the female line were
retained by the Anezeh. At that time she was
twelve years old and looked four. When she
was seven or eight years old she had swept the
desert for speed. Six years before the Ger-
man Government had paid four himdred
pounds for her three-year-old son. We stood

[119]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

immovable as she was galloped away to fetch
the colt which we were to see, and which I
had already made up my mind to buy, no mat-
ter if his legs were crooked.

It was nearly sun-down when the same
Bedouins returned riding the colt, and, when
he was a hundred yards away, Thompson,
Moore and myself, all remarked that anyone
could tell who his mother was for his eyes were
set in the same peculiar manner. It was
evident from our measurement that he was
not going to be as big as his mother, but that
he showed the same characteristics was enough.
He was absolutely free from blemish of any
kind. He was a pink gray that would prob-
ably shed out into white; his disposition was
as perfect as his mother's and, although a scant
two years old, his manners were those of a little
gentleman, and we came to terms rather quick-
ly. When a price was finally agreed upon,
Haffez always called me and the Bedouin to
him. Taking the right hand of each of us, he
would join them; then laying one of his hands
over ours and pointing up, he would ask the
Bedouin if he would swear before God that
everything he said was true, and if he would
be willing, with God as a witness, to ask the

[120]

Acbmet HalTez would join our bands Just before tbe bane
WBB bongbt, [hen reating hia hands on oura, would ask tho
warrior lo repeat to God all he had Just said about the animal,
then vlth a toss o[ our bands the deal was closed.

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

Sheikh of the tribe to put his seal on the bar-
gain. Then if the Bedouin said yes, Haffez
would toss the hands up and the deal was
closed. We felt exceedingly proud of this
two-year-old. The Bedouins came and sat
round him in honor of his distinguished
mother.

Later Arthur and Jack had a laugh on me.
We saw a bay mare galloping at some distance
and her action impressed us all, but me espe-
cially. As the rider came closer the others
said the mare was limping, but I was doubtful.
She moved so well that I had hopes of buying
her if she filled Haff ez's measure. But to our
astonishment when she came walking up we
f oimd that one of her pasterns had been broken.
She was walking on the ankle joint, the foot a
withered-up dried object, being turned up at
the outer side like that of a dead horse. We
learned she had been injured in war and that
the accident only hindered her speed a little.

[122]

CHAPTER X

AN IMPORTANT CEREMONY IN WHICH I WAS ONE
OF THE PRINCIPALS — ^A CIRCASSIAN VILLAGE
WITH A VISIT TO THE GOVERNOR AND WHAT
BEFELL SHEIKH ALI

Arthur Moore, riding Akmet Haffez's
Abeyeh Sherrakieh mare, an animal with a
wonderful head and build, was to go back to
Aleppo at this time with Jack Thompson and
Faiot, Haffez's younger son, to procure more
tea, of which the Bedouins were very fond.
Indeed we had used up nearly all we had
brought out for the entire trip, in our first three
days at the camp. He was also going to bring
some more gold, and his Mauser rifle. We
were nine hours ride, about thirty-five or thir-
ty-six miles from Aleppo, and while my com-
panions were gone I tried to come to an agree-
ment with Haffez over the mare which Moore
was riding. She had been taken in war by
the Anezeh, from the Shanmiar, across the
Euphrates, and her pedigree bore the last seal

[128]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

of Sheikh Faris, the great enemy of the
Anezeh, who had been dead two years. She
was small, not more than fourteen hands two
inches high, but I never saw such beautiful hind
quarters and back tendons on anything in
horse flesh.

Now every time I had tried to buy this mare
from Haffez he turned it off with a joke, say-
ing that everything he had was mine and that
there was nothing to buy. Then when he
would apparently talk seriously about selling
her, he would warn me to be careful for the
agreement he had made with the Anezeh was

ABEYAH

Tbls mare's liead was considered b7 the Bedouins the most

perfect of the Atiezeb.

not binding between us, and that he would

dicker and bargain as best we could. Even

when I consented and asked him to put a

[124]

Abeyah'B pedigree bBarlug tbe last seal of Fares (tbe dark one).

I, Fnres EJI-Jarbah, hereby testlf; that tbe red mare wblch
has white on Its face and on its long hind legs, Is Aberah
Sbrakleh of tbe breed of Matbaba El-Hadab. Sbe was bred
Id the darkoeas ot night and Is purer than milk. And we
have not testlfled eicept to what we bare known, and we are

Witness thereot; Pares Ei.-Jarbah.
ATTESTATION:
I teatltT bT Allab tbat tbe atorementloned witness. Fares
Bash a Ibn Atrat, Is a rock ol truth, and his testimony la
acceptable.

(Signed) AHUjtD HAFEZ.

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

price on her, he said ten pounds, and that threw
the whole thing back into the joke basket.
But that night I finally got him. I told him
seriously that above all the mares I had seen
on the desert, I wanted his Abeyeh Sherrakieh,
because of her fine head. So he finally set a
price which seemed reasonable, and I offered
him ten pounds more and made him take it. I
also bought his Hamdanieh Simrieh filly, four
years old, a bay, which he himself rode. I
think she can outwalk anything in horse flesh
I ever saw, and I believe that even in a field of
exceptionally fast walking horses, she would
be five miles ahead of the lot in an all-day walk.
She and her sister, with a broken shoulder, were
the only Hamdanieh Simrieh in the northern
part of the desert. The Anezeh told me there
were some in the Shammar, but only a few.
They are the rarest horses in the desert, and
the blood is held in higher esteem than any-
thing else.

I hope I have succeeded in impressing the
reader with the very fine nobility of character
of Akmet Haffez. My friendship with him
and my admiration for him began at our first
meeting in Aleppo and each day made both
stronger. And now I was to come into closer

[126]

MY QUEST OP THE ARAB HORSE

relations with him. The morning after the
mare became mine we were to start on the visit
to Sheikh Ali and just before we mounted I
went through the ceremony which made me his
brother.

Neither of us had brothers and so we agreed
to follow out our old custom of the Bedouins
and take the fraternal pledge. I first treated
the matter a little too frivolously, but the
Bedouins were very solenm.

Standing at one side of the tent, in the pres-
ence of many witnesses, we held up our right
hands and, with our left clasped together, re-
peated the pledge. Akmet Haff ez began with
the words, "Wallah! Wallahil" ("O God! My
God I") which I repeated after him. "Wallah 1
Wallahil" and then together we said them over
and over again.

"Billahl BiUahil Tillahl TiUahil" chanted
the old Bedouin. "Akhwan, akhwan, el yom wa
bookra wa Tal abad, akhwan." ( "By God and
through God, brothers, to-day and to-morrow
and forever brothers!")

I felt nothing of frivolity now and as I
grasped his hand and took the oath my eyes
were moist. After it was over he asked how
I felt now that I was the brother of a brown

[128]

AN IMPORTANT CEREMONY

old man, who ate with his hands. I replied
that I felt no change ; that we had apparently
always been hrothers, whereupon he began to
cry.

Who Imew, he asked, but that we had been
through a similar ceremony that God himself
had performed cen-
turies ago on some
other planet.

Shortly after, we
started for Sheikh
Ali's tribe, the
Abogonese, a
branch of the Ane-
zeh, who seldom

im tar cnii+li in th*> Sheikh All Raahld o£ the Abo-Gomeae,
go lar SOUTH m tne „ sub-trlbe ot the Anezeh.

desert.

Sheikh Ali greeted us warmly and accom-
panied US on a ten-hour night ride to a Cir-
cassian village near the Euphrates, to see a
gray colt, a Kehilan Jilfan Stam el Bulada, a
young horse whose dam was a distinguished
war mare. This ride on a hot night was very
trying, but the Bedouins beguiled the time
with the melancholy song so common among
them and with many curious questions about
America.

[129]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

The shooting stars which fell in eveiy direc-
tion in the desert heavens, were playing like
Pain's fireworks, but I was so tired and sleepy
that it was with diflSculty that I kept awake.
About three in the morning we stopped at a
small village consisting of a dozen houses. The
villagers were aroused by a barking of the dogs
and when they heard the words, "Akmet Haf-
fezl" they got up instantly and made us wel-
come, and we slept in the beds they had just
quitted, till about five o'clock, when we started
on again. About ten the next morning we
arrived at the Circassian village, and after see-
ing the colt and having had a few more hours'
rest, we felt well repaid for the trip and bought
the horse as well as a bay colt with a peculiar
dark brown spot on his right flank — a Maneghi
Hedruj. At the same place we secured a
chestnut two-year-old, an Abeyan Sherrak,
which had been recently brought from Deyr,
on the lower Euphrates. This little fellow
was so full of life that they had to show him
with all four feet hobbled, but he understood
the hobbles so well that in his pacing motion he
managed to make much play. All these three
colts were bred by the Anezeh.

While at this village we saw a gray mare,

[180]

AN IMPORTANT CEREMONY

four years old, that stood fifteen hands and
two inches high, which I wanted to buy very
much; but she was not
"Chubby" and Haffez
thought the asking price
was too large, so we didn't
get her. At this same vil-
lage, a Circassian came
along with a beautiful filly.
Whenever I approached
her she would stamp as a
sheep does at a strange
dog, turn and try to kick
me — anything to keep me
away. I asked the Cir-
cassion if she was "Chub-
by," and he told me "Yes." ^
When Haffez came out, he This ha-asome B^doum
said "Chubby?" and the qufte"'a'diXn<fe""tth"u
Circassian told him "Yes." [^^V; ^^f %,^\^
I saw a Bedouin whisper '^^^l "'^^l^'Vy''-^::^^ -
to Haffez, and the latter ;;;'i''„i"h^"L'''Hnrt*'i?"n:
ran over and gripped the
Circassian by the right '
hand, and asked him to say to Giod that she
was "Chubby." If you ever saw a fellow pull
loose quick, it was this Circassian. He yelled
[131]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

in his efforts to get away, and at the same time
saying the mare was "Chubby" to me, but not
to God.

It was such a hot day that we had not gone
out of the house except to look at colts. Final-
ly a messenger came from the Governor's of-
fice, saying that his Excellency was much put
out, as he had been sitting at his office in state,
ready to receive us, for the last two or three
hours, and that he was anxious that we should
call on him, in order that he could return our
visit. So with Akmet Haff ez and Sheikh Ali,
we went through the blinding heat to the old
rock-and-mud-built Governor's Palace.

We were ushered in and passed the body-
guard of the Governor, which consisted of an
Arab with a spear, a soldier with an old-fash-
ioned gun, and another man with a sort of a
tomahawk. The Governor had a very long
and narrow face, with a small black chin
beard. He wore a fez and nervously
counted beads, much irritated at his servants
because of the irregular way they served the
coffee and cigarettes. He kept Ameene, the
interpreter, busy, for he wished to know all
about us — from where we had come and when
we were going. After I had made a bluff at

[132]

AN IMPORTANT CEREMONY

smoking fifty cigarettes, and drinking as many-
cups of coffee, we were served with some of
that red sticky lemonade, or syrup, which
seemed to completely close our throats.

All this time the Governor sat on an old
dais, trying so hard to be dignified that it was
almost humorous. A row of men against the
opposite wall of the room seemed to be mem-
bers of his cabinet, or advisory board, and they
were mostly very fat men.

As we started to leave one of the fat men
whispered something to Sheikh Ali, and after
we were outside I noticed that the big hand-
some Sheikh had been detained. Haff ez came
to me with a peculiar twinkle in his eye and
told me that apparently we had gotten into a
queer situation. Sheikh Ali, it seems, had
been "wanted" for murder in Membig for a
number of years, and as this was the first time
he had been to the town for more than eight
years, he had been detained. Haffez wanted
me to go back to the Governor and tell him
that as Sheikh Ali was my guest it would
not be fair to arrest him now. In other words
I was to inform his Excellency that his fingers
were crossed and that he ought to turn Ali

[183]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

loose. After I had gone, if they could take
him, well and good.

I was getting ready to go to the Governor's
office and spring the speech, when Ali himself
came out with a broad grin, saying that the
Governor had let him off from the murder pro-
vided he resumed paying his camel tax, which
had been overlooked since the murder was
committed. We had hardly stopped laughing
and gotten back to our own quarters, when an
excited servant came dashing ahead to clear the
way and to tell us that the Governor was about
to repay our visit.

When the Governor came, after the usual
rush of coffee and cigarettes, we had rather a
pleasant visit and talked as if we had not seen
each other five minutes before. He was much
interested in America and its political customs.
At the request of Akmet Haffez, I told him
some Silverton stories. He was more than in-
terested in my father and requested to be in-
formed of the latter's health as soon as I re-
turned to America. There was no more talk
of Sheikh Ali's crime and I have often won-
dered whether he is paying those camel taxes I

[184]

CHAPTER XI

AS TO DOGS ; AND AS TO ONE DOG IN PAETICULAE.

This chapter is going to be a digression. I
am going to let horses go by for the moment
and talk about something else. So you have
fair warning to skip the chapter and catch up
further on. But after all, my present text is
"dog"; and if you are truly a horse-lover you
must almost always necessarily be a dog-lover.
The two things somehow go together.

Besides, although the rather involved story
I am about to relate, began in Morris Plains,
N. J., and was continued in Paris, Constanti-
nople and Aleppo, it ended in the desert and
on the way to visit the Sheikh Ali, of which I
told in the last chapter. That is my excuse
to you for telling it at all. To myself I do not
have to make any excuse of any kind — I just
simply have to tell the story. And here it is
for what it is worth :

When I left Morris Plains I wanted to take

[185]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

with me two worthy Airedale terriers that
were more or less (rather more) members of
the family. Instantly there went up from the
hmnan part of the household, a wail that the
dogs would be in the way. One of the dogs
had been on a trip as far as Oregon, and had
never been in the way; but as this wail went
up from everybody who was not in the least
concerned in the matter, and notwithstanding
that the dogs wanted to go, I chucked the plan.
I hated to leave them, for a dog's love in a
strange place is comforting, and these two dogs
I had known from puppies, and they knew
me. But they were left behind and not even
allowed to say good-bye to me at the station,
and after that, they were forgotten for a time
at least.

On the voyage to Havre we met a traveller,
an Englishman, of course, who had lived and
hunted everywhere, and who insisted at every
point in the conversation "that on the Eu-
phrates River, one always needed a dog."
That was enough ; I am not a hunter, but I was
pining for an excuse to get a dog. So, at
Paris, the first thing I inquired for was a dog
shop which had for sale the right kind of a
dog. Mile after mile I rode in taximeters and

[136]

AS TO DOGS

borrowed autos, always hunting dogs, and at
the last moment I got on the track of a shop
and such a dog as I described ; a dog that would
be a companion, a hunter, and above all a
friend. But we had little time left in which
to buy a dog.

We were actually on the way to catch the
Orient express for Constantinople before we
got a chance to go to this particular dog shop.
A woman ran it ; a dark-complexioned woman,
with black hair which was exquisitely smooth.
She showed the dog ; it was a large black-and-
tan with a bobtail — ^a restless sort of cur which
she declared was a sheep-dog. Anyway, she
called it something in French, which Moore
said meant "sheep-dog." We didn't believe
Moore in the least on principle, but we believed
the woman. She was so attractive that we
hardly saw the dog, and when she made eyes
at us we realized only one thing and that was
that she would have made a fortune in a New
York dog store — or almost any other kind of
a store.

So we bought the dog. We didn't like him,
but we bought him just the same on her guar-
antee that he would be a charming companion.
That seemed enough at the time. On the train

[187]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

he was nervous and wanted to get away from
me. He seemed to be everybody's dog but
mine. When we arrived at Constantinople he
and I were as distant as ever, and at Beyrout it
was the same. Wherever we stopped he rec-
ognized that I was in the party, but that he
was not mine. He was more of a nuisance than
a dog. He did not have anything to recom-
mend him, not even manners. About the only
comfort any of us could get out of him was that
his sight recalled the lady who sold him to us,
and in that way we coaxed ourselves into the
belief that we had already got the $25 worth
out of him. Long before we arrived at Alep-
po I began to show the strain, and at Alep-
po, after I had carted him over three thousand
miles, I left him in a boarding house, while I
went to the desert alone.

As I rode out at the head of the caravan in
search of the Anezeh tribe, I realized that for
weeks (they would seem years of care and pa-
tience with a wayward dog) I was to be with-
out even him, but comforted myself with the
fact that, as we evidently did not understand
each other's language, it was best we parted. I
had named him (the only French word I
had been able to learn) "Dedong" (Dis

[188]

AS TO DOGS

done!), which translated means "Say!" You
ought to have heard the Frenchwoman say-
that.

But we had not ridden far into the desert be-
fore I missed something. I kept looking down
and behind me to see if something were not fol-
lowing me. I could not quite make out at first
what it was I missed, but I knew that some-
thing was lacking.

The red and yellow soil of the desert seemed
to change into green grass and greener trees
and I could see the rich New Jersey landscape
stretch away before me. I was in the desert
and in Morris Plains at the same time. I grew
homesick. Hark! Was that a familiar bark
or just the echo of something I wanted to hear?
Then I knew that what I missed most was the
companionship of a dog. I thought at first,
of course, of the Airedales that wanted to make
the journey with me and I felt more homesick
than ever. I longed even for a sight of "De-
dong." I was sorry that he had been left be-
hind and that I had ever regarded him with dis-
favor.

Even the excitement of the first night in the
desert was of little consolation. We had been
received with great ceremony and all that the

[189]

3IY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

Anezeh had was ours, but although I had been
tremendously impressed, it was not until the
second night that I began to feel really at
home. On that second night I saw some dogs.
Our tents were pitched in a beautiful spot, and
as the Bedouins were walking about gossiping
of the new arrivals, I noticed how different
the dogs were from the mangy curs we had
seen in every village and town from Constanti-
nople to Aleppo. While almost wild, they
were large and noble-looking fellows, with big
heads, and were accustomed to drive flocks and
herds. They didn't roam promiscuously like
the dogs of the town.

I saw at one tent a litter of pups that were
big and husky. This dog family consisted of
the father and mother and four children — ^three
girls and a boy. The boy walked out to see
us. I stopped and patted him, whereupon he
fell on his back with his heels up, and was im-
mensely pleased.

He looked back at the tent where his family
was and wondered if they were as happy as he.
He saw in his home a place where only the
fittest or the prettiest survived. His father
was a big powerful fellow in his prime, and he
would be able to drive the males from a good

[140]

AS TO DOGS

many litters before one would eventually whip
him. The sisters were pretty, and could stay
at home, but for this big overgrown puppy
there was not much of a future with his father.
He was so big for his age that his father
snarled at him, and the neighbors' dogs made
him keep out of their tents. The only kindness
he got was from his mother. He was well fed,
but he was waiting for an opportunity. He
wanted a home of his own.

I stopped again and he came to me and that
time we knew each other a little better. He
was still as bashful as most pups who have
not shed their first teeth, but as we finally
parted, I saw him look at me long and hope-
fully. He seemed to tell me that he was a boy
with a purpose in life, whose father didn't un-
derstand him ; that while it was customary for
a boy to stay at home and work till he was
twenty-one years old, in his case he would have
to begin to do something when he was twelve
or fourteen, owing to the determined nature
and unkindly ways of his parent.

That evening after the Bedouins had gone,
a big white baby head shoved its way through
the curtain of my tent. The pup was return-
ing my visit in true Bedouin fashion. He did

[141]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

not walk; he crawled with politoiess. After
a few moments taken up in patting him, we
went to the cook's tent and got better acquaint-
ed with the aid of some chicken bones. I left
him for the night, but heard him barking at the
camels as they came by about midnight. The
next morning he was there; his opportunity
had come and he had taken it.

He had filled the only vacancy, perhaps, on
the great Arabian desert from Nejd to Aleppo.
There was probably not a tent, except mine,
that was not carefully watched by many dogs.
His tail was poised in a different way. He
had actually grown during the night, and he
had the ways of a full-fledged dog, and
wouldn't let others come around. He watched
the saddle, and lying on the saddle blankets,
with his big brown eyes wide open, he was
thinking how to manage his empire. All day
he went from tent to tent, from saddle to horse,
as if the weight of the whole caravan was on
his shoulders.

He was no longer a bashful puppy. He
growled and barked when his father and
mother drove a hundred sheep too close to his
pre-empted home. He wouldn't even let his
sisters, who were as dainty as girl puppies

[142]

AS TO DOGS

could be, sniff around the tent. They were
not afraid of him at first, but after he had
really bitten them, they retreated from his ter-
ritory and watched him with their heads tipped
to one side. He sat at our tent pegs, and see-
ing life seriously was brave enough to tackle it.
His hour had arrived and he was there with all
his four feet — and those feet were the only
things that were holding him back. They
looked like a composite picture of all the babies'
feet in the world. They were heavy and cum-
bersome, but he had not lost faith in them. It
was strange, but you could actually see him
grow. We laughed when we saw, an hour aft-
erwards, that his tail was an inch longer, held
higher up and showing more independence.
The last thing that night he was walking
among the stallions and mares with an impor-
tant air that nearly threw his shoulder-blades
out of socket. During the night I heard him
several times; his growl was coarser and he
made several tours to see that everything was
all right.

At six in the morning he came to me, as
much as to say: "These donkeys and sheep and
camels think that, because they have known me

[143]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

all my life, they can walk right over our tent
ropes, but I won't have it."

He kept up this attitude, getting more and
more confidence in himself, until we were ready
to start on our visit to Sheikh Ali. I had
wanted to take him along, especially when he
was mouthing over my hands with his sharp
baby teeth, but his big soft feet and legs looked
too young to stand such a march, and I gave
up the notion altogether. But the pup had
other ideas. We were a half mile or more on
our way when Ameene called to me to look in
the shadow of my horse, and there almost under
my stirrup was the pup, limibering along. His
tail was rolled up more importantly than ever.
At last he had a mission. He had seen that
we were without a guard, so he had cast his lot
with ours. He recognized that we needed pro-
tection and he was giving it at the cost of leav-
ing home and a good mother, and a father who
was compelled to remain behind by the laws of
home, to be what he was. I could not keep
my eyes from him, he was so brave. He was
now out of sight of the environment that he
knew and was going to the big desert. At in-
tervals he sniffed at my stirrup as if traveling
was new to him. He was a pioneer without

[144]

AS TO DOGS

practice, and he did not propose to get lost.
He proposed to stick by me.

I thought of Senator Vest's remarks when
he appeared in court at St. Louis for a tramp
whose dog was killed by a neighbor. Vest
spoke of one's children and how, no matter with
what tender kindness and care they were
reared, they would leave home and parents
often without a farewell.

But there was one friend of man, said the
Senator, who never deserted him ; a friend who
would lick the hand that had no food to offer ;
a friend who, when death came, when the mas-
ter had finished his life, when all others had
returned from the graveyard, would mourn at
the grave itself — ^his last, his best friend, his
dog ! I thought of that and then of this puppy,
a little fellow offering his devotion for my
friendship and at that moment giving me a
friendly glance from his eyes. He was like
Jefferson C. James, who once ran for Mayor in
San Francisco, and who said in a somewhat
famous speech: "I seen my duty and I done
it." James was not elected, but that has noth-
ing to do with this pup.

We followed Sheikh Ali and Akmet Haffez
across the plains for miles. We saw a rab-

[145]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

bit; it was the dog's first, and he fell over a
clod in his initial race. He came back to the
shadow of the horse, and there ambled along
in a dignified way. Astride the best horse in
the desert, and protected by the best puppy in
the world, I was much elated. We flushed
some f rancolins, beautiful birds, but he was too
important to be a bird dog. He was march-
ing among horses and men and camels. He
was the only dog in the caravan and at every
mile he seemed to realize the fact more. He
was avoiding the camel thistles as best he could,
but while more francolins went up and his
attention was on them for a moment he got a
nasty burr in his big soft foot. He went on
three legs a while and then showed of what
stuff he was made. He rolled on his back and
deliberately gnawed the burr out with his
teeth without a whimper. He had left mother
and father for me, and he was to meet emer-
gencies as they came.

He was going out where there was a future,
and no such little thing as a thorn, not even
a camel thistle, could stop him. I wondered
if he would be happier if he knew of the glit-
tering collar I was going to get for him when

[146]

AS TO DOGS

we reached New York, and how proud I knew
my own dogs would be to meet him. With the
knowledge he would acquire on a trip to
the Anezeh, everything seemed to be before
him. Sheikh Ali had galloped his bay mare
a mile ahead to the tents of his own tribe, and
the horsemen came galloping to meet us, carry-
ing spears that looked thirty feet long. It was
all excitement and the puppy ran ahead to
join it. We saw the Sheikh's tent, a big tent
with lots of men near it. They were killing a
lamb and wolf -like dogs were jumping aroimd
it. Before I could dismount, or a man come
to the rescue with a spear, my volunteer baby
guard, my puppy, my boy that was leaving
home at ten and going out into the world to
make a living, was torn and dead. He didn't
whine. He had fought as well as he could
with his puppy teeth, the teeth that had
scratched my hand in play a few hours before,
but they had failed him. He had started out
for himself to be as much of a man as a dog
can ever be. He had left home that his father
might rule alone. But he was gone and it was
all over! The opportimity we thought so
bright was a blank. The career that had
started so well had ended quickly. The first

[147]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

real fight he had ever made was the only one
he ever was to make. He died a real hero.

I felt as if I could have destroyed the dogs
of the desert for this wanton murder. The
affection of this puppy was spontaneous and it
was mine. There was no glittering collar on
him as he died, but he died as he had traveled
— ^in the shadow of the horse, before his mas-
ter's eyes and without turning tail.

[148]

CHAPTER XII

THE MEETING WITH HASHEM BEY, THE GEEAT

SHEIKH OF THE DESERT,

With that dog story off my mind ( I simply
had to tell it), the narrative of the trip may
be resumed. We left the Circassian village at
three in the afternoon and were back at our
tent at five in the morning. For us the ride
was tiresome, but the horses were as fresh as
ever. This wonderful endurance of the
Anezeh horses, although we expected much,
was a constant surprise. They never seemed
to tire and I shall relate soon a remarkable in-
stance of their strength and stamina.

The event of importance to which we were
now looking forward was the meeting with
Hashem Bey, the Sheikh of Sheikhs of the
desert. No sooner indeed had we arrived at
our tents than we were informed that the
ruler of the Anezeh had returned with a large
number of his warriors to see us, and so after

[149]

The Supreme Shiekh, Hash em Bey.

MEETING WITH HASHEM BEY

a few hours* rest the meeting came about.
Haffez walked over, with the Sheikh on his
arm, and we met just outside of our own tents.

Hashem Bey was tall and thin, a young man
of thirty-four, or even younger. He was
strictly the war type; his eyes were set far
back under the bones, without being wide
apart. After we had talked for ten minutes
and had assured him that it did not seem
right that the greatest Sheikh in all the Syrian
desert should have ridden a journey of three
days to meet us, 5i noticed that there was
something lacking in him.

He was not the big man Akmet Haff ez was.
He did not possess the latter's fine sense of
humor or, indeed, any sense of humor ; he was
without that indefinable air that immediately
suggests gentility and good breeding. He
was very evidently not particularly pleased to
meet us and the reason for this soon came out.
I had called his attention with a great deal
of pride to the fact that I was riding his brown
Maneghi Sbeyel stallion, the pride of his en-
tire people, and a present, by order of him, to
the Governor of Aleppo, and the latter^s pres-
ent to me. His lip curled and he made that
motion of his hands, slapping them past each

[151]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

other, common among the Bedouins, which
meant that the horse was lost to them.

In all our subsequent intercourse this loss of
the "Pride of the Desert" seemed uppermost
in his thoughts and he never allowed us to for-
get that he was not pleased with the Governor
of Aleppo. Be-
fore the first inter-
view was over I
realized that we
were a disappoint-
m e n t to each
other, and was
( secretly glad I had

^' not ridden three

' days to see him, as

glad, I imagine,
as he was sorry
-■-«*»2; he had done so,

The Sheikh of .11 Sheikhs. thoUgh, of COUrSe,

he was in duty bound to take the ride in
honor of Akmet Haffez.

Perhaps, too, my dress had something to do
with his disappointment. I was looking shop-
worn, to say the least, and he might have
thought that I would be dressed hke some of
the foreign government army officials who
[132]

MEETING WITH HASHEM BEY

often came to him to buy horses. We got
along well, but never easily.

Finally I took a walk with Akmet Haffez,
and when we were alone, except for Ameene,
the interpreter, Haffez asked in a low voice
how I liked the great Hashem Bey.

I looked at the old man's face to see if he
was prepared for an honest answer, and see-
ing that he wanted my candid opinion, I told
him I was glad Hashem Bey had ridden three
days instead of us. The old man rolled with
quiet laughter, and taking hold of my arm a
little tighter, said: "I am glad to see you are a
judge of human nature as well as of horses.
While he's the Sheikh of all, there are thou-
sands of men in his own tribe that are far bet-
ter than he, as men. He is angry, as you know,
because the Governor of Aleppo gave you the
Maneghi, but let me tell you something more :
he has already expressed an unwillingness to
put his seal on the horse's pedigree. But,"
and the old man's eyes flashed, "I will force him
to do it or else make him appear ridiculous be-
fore Allah and his own tribes."

Hashem Bey seemed to be more interested
in our rifles and guns than anything else. I
presented him with my rifle (a special "Sav-

[153]

PedlfiTee o( Haleb, the brown Maeghl Sbeyl, the (ayorlte atalllon o(
the desert of 1900. This pedigree bears the seals of Sheikh AH Rashld,
Achmet HaSez Had Hatcbem Bey. It Is a pedigree that would be bowed to
from Neja to Aleppo.

<8]lMd) ABHilP 1

MEETING WITH HASHEM BEY

age") and with all the cartridges I had with
me, and he took them not so much as a present
as an addition to his supply of guns. Of
course we discussed horses with him at great
length, and, as the highest authority in the
world on Arab horses, he cleared away -many
doubtful points relative to the breed. I had
my Arab horse books along with me, including
the last volume of Roger D. Upton, •in which
he mentions all the f amiliescand sub-families of
the Arab horse. These were carefully exam-
ined by the Sheikh, and those which were con-
sidered "Chubby" by the Anezeh were marked
thus. He said the Abeyeh Sherrakieh mare,
which Arthur Moore had just ridden back from
Aleppo, had the rarest head there was in the
desert, and she, herself, was one of the most
valuable of mares.

Moore had come to the desert an entire skep-
tic on the subject of Arab horse. He had
heard in America so much talk about the Arab
by ignorant people and had failed to find any
proof of their stories, that he was an entire dis-
believer. He went to the desert convinced
that our Cayuse horses could outrun, outlast,
outwork and outdo the Arab in everything ex^
cept looks.

[155]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

But on the way back from Aleppo he was en-
tirely converted and became an enthusiast.
As I mentioned above, he was riding the
Abeyeh mare and determined to put his to the
test. It was a foolish thing to do, for the heat
was terrific and the mare had a bad cough and
cold. At home she would have been in the

An old warrior o( the Anexeh.

care of a veterinary. Moore, with his rifle and
ammunition and $4,000 in gold, which he was
carrying, weighed 300 pounds. Nevertheless
he galloped her thirty-five miles in four hours
and a half, carrying all the weight. He did
[156]

MEETING WITH HASHEM BEY

not follow any beaten roadway, but took her
over the rocks of the desert in a bee-line. The
further she went, he said, the stronger she
seemed to get, and the better she seemed to
move. At the end her cough did not seem to
be worse, and when Moore was on her she
didn't seem to be tired. She showed some of
the effects of the test when she was standing
still by continually resting. Moore wanted the
Arab horse to show him something, and he got
it without getting it second-hand. From that
time on he stood up for the Arab horse.

What made this trial of the mare the more
wonderful was that while she was considered
among the Anezeh as their greatest race mare,
she had probably never before had on her back
more than 150 to 160 pounds. While Moore
was riding her the first evening we left Aleppo,
Akmet Haffez had outrun everybody in the
party with his Hamdenieh Simrieh filly, until
he came to race the Abeyeh mare. Then, to
the utter astonishment of evervbodv, this small
mare, carrying the handicap, easily outfooted
Haffez's horse in a half mile run.

Among the horses we purchased at this time
was a bay Seglawieh Jedranieh mare, owned by
an old Bedouin, who wore a most tattered

[157]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

Keffeyeh or headdress and whose face was one
of the most expressionless I had ever seen.
She sat low to the ground, but was very power-
ful and broad; her head, though not like the

Wbea I offered this expreBslonleas old horsemBD a hundred
and Dtty pounds (Freocb) (or his Seglawieli-Jedraaieb mare,
with a «runt of dlssuat he mouoted and rode avay.

Abeyeh Sherrakieh's, was an expressive one.
The fact of her being a Seglawieh Jedranieh
made her of unusual interest and more than a
thousand Bedouins gathered round to see her.
She was a beast of evidently unusual power.

Akmet Haffez asked me quietly if I wanted

her, and I said I did. He advised me not to

[158]

MEETING WITH HASHEM BEY

pay over one hundred and twenty-five Turkish
pounds, but at my suggestion he offered one
hundred and fifty, and the mare was led away
by the old expressionless man, with a sneer on
bis face. She was taken away and hobbled
near some other horses, and her owner came in
under the big tent where he joined the circle
of others who were smoking, always preserv-
ing the same cold countenance.

His face was so remarkable, and his eyes so
void of any emotion, that I inquired of him if
he would object to my drawing his picture.
The expression of his face never changed; he
just gave his hand an upward toss, and a
grunt, which meant "No."

We were shown other horses of the Anezeh,
and bought a white mare, a Maneghieh Sbeyel,
standing over fifteen hands high, which was to
foal within ninety days from that time. Her
eyes were large and very black with brilliant
high lights, but at the same time with a soft
kind look.

Arthur Moore, who had missed his present
in Aleppo by leaving us at a critical moment,
was presented with a five-year-old stallion, a
Maneghi Hedruj. In the afternoon we had
the big camel feast.

[159]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

We spent several days with the Anezeh and
the faces I had admired so much at first had
begun to wear on me. After all, these desert
Bedouins were, first and last, warriors, and the
constant fighting expression in their faces was
becoming monotonous. The idleness in which
they lived, with no purpose in life other than
to sit around till some raid was started, was
wearing on me.

We had enjoyed our stay; we had feasted on
a camel (they said it was a young one) ; we
had talked horse pedigrees with the Anezeh
for days without interruption ; we had seen the
greatest animals they had, and now owned
some of them; we had bought nearly all the
horses that my Irade would permit to be ex-
ported; time was flying and we were a long
way from New York. It seemed when I
looked at the map as if we never would be
able to get there. Next day was set for our
departure, and after one of the most enjoy-
able nights of our visit, passed in listening to
horse stories and desert legends, we retired
about eleven o'clock, and were up by daylight
getting the luggage ready to start. The fare-
well feast was over, our tents were coming

[160]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

down and our stallions and mares were being
led off.

My dear old Bedouin brother, Haffez, knew
that I liked the farmer Bedouin best, but he
came to me, resting his weight on my shoulder
as he leaned on me and holding Ameene by
the other hand. He had one request. He
asked that when I bade Hashem Bey good-bye,
I should wish him success in his wars. That,
of course, was perfectly reasonable, and we
both hoped that it would soothe Hashem, for
he was still cross about the "Pride of the
Desert."

And the time had nearly arrived to start;
the last coffee time was being played and the
Maneghi Sbeyel stallion was saddled, waiting.
Hundreds of Anezeh horsemen were bidding
him good-bye, and tying blue beads in his mane
and tail, to keep off the evil eye. Akmet Haf-
fez gave me the signal and we all arose.
Hashem Bey knew, of course, that we were
leaving. He walked out from under the tent
where the seal-brown stallion stood fretting to
join the other horses. I took the Sheikh by
the hand, and told him, through the interpreter,
that I hoped he would live a long and happy
life, and that when he had to die he would die

[162]

MEETING WITH HASHEM BEY

on horseback in the heat of war. He raised
the back of my hand to his forehead, and we
parted. He gave the Maneghi a good-bye.
Sheikh Ali, of the Abu Gomuese, walked by
my horse, holding hands for a few yards, to
assure me that they had all enjoyed the visit,
and we were off.

'Halcb-a' head.

At Chicago in 1893, the World's Fair Arab
horses were imable to stand up in their Bedouin
shoes on the slick polished dirt, and the Arabs,
shortly after their arrival, changed to the
American horseshoe. I saw the small horse,
the subject of the following letter, have
both his forward tendons practically cut off by
overreaching. Notwithstanding that, about
[168]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

ten years later, with a drunken groom, he ran
away about twenty miles. Before he was sold
to Mr. Shoemaker (the present owner), he
was "let down" in his hind pasterns.

In view of this I think Mr. Shoemaker's
statement most remarkable. It shows a per-
formance greater even than Moore's in the des-
ert, or that of General Colby's riding in Ne-
braska on the Grant stallions.

Mr. Shoemaker writes as follows :

"I purchased the Arab stallion *Koubishan,'
which I have since re-christened 'Nasir Khos-
ran,' of Mr. Davenport, on April 1st, 1906.
He is a horse perhaps 19 years old, 14.2 hands
high, of a peculiar color. I rode him daily in
Central Park last spring, and early in June
shipped him to my country home at McElhat-
tan, Penn., which is situated in the wildest
and most mountainous part of that state,
hundred miles through the mountains, never
going less than thirty miles in a day. We did
not go continuously, however, as I frequently
rested at attractive spots to enjoy the country,
but never stayed more than a day in one place.

"During the balance of the summer I rode
him from time to time, but while I was absent

[ 164 ]

-^---•1 ^ . i j-tO, ' « ~ i*-^. .••n

MEETING WITH HASHEM BEY

in New York he was never exercised. De-
spite this, he was just as fresh and sturdy as if
in constant use. Early in October he was ex-
ercised by my hired boy, and towards the mid-
dle of that month I started on another tour
with him. We traveled along Pine Creek to
Morris Run, Penn., by easy stages, and on
October 14th started back. The day was fine
for what proved to be a memorable ride of
seventy miles. The temperature registered at
thirty, the sky was clear and the ground cov-
ered with frost. 'Nasif Khosran' or 'Koubi-
shan,' carried, including saddle and myself, two
hundred and ten pounds. I was accompanied
by my cousin, Mr. James W. Quiggle, second,
and my friend, Mr. G. Scott Smith, who rode
tough western ponies. We left Morris Rxm
at seven o'clock in the morning and arrived at
McElhattan at seven o'clock in the evening,
resting two hours at mid-day in English Cen-
ter. We kept up a stiff pace, averaging seven
miles an hour for the entire seventy miles,
which resulted in the western ponies playing
out after thirty-five miles, but the Arab, carry-
ing his heavy load, finished the trip alone in
first-class condition, although the roads were
all up and down hill, and the next morning he

[165]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

was as fresh as ever, and did not even lose his
appetite. That, I think, is a pretty good test
for the Arab horse, and proves him to be
adapted to the most exacting work in the
roughest eomitry, for it is ahnost impossible to
have imagined what he would have done if he
had been a much younger horse. He is to-day
in superb condition, and during Christmas hol-
idays I drove him in a sleigh, where he showed
great speed."

[166]

CHAPTER XIII

STARTING ON THE RETURN JOURNEY AND SOME
ORIENTAL BARGAINING — ^IHE BEGINNING OF
THE STORY OF THE MARE.

Hashem Bey was left behind, and though
our faces were once more turned toward the
west we were still in the desert and were
to have more adventures and to witness mope
shrewd oriental bargaining on the part of
Akmet Haffez. After leaving the main body
of the Anezeh we rode for five hours and
camped near a spring which bubbled up from
under the hot rocks.

We were waked in the morning by the
neighing of the horses we had purchased and
found we had been aroused by the approach
of a Bedouin riding a bay mare and leading a
two-year-old colt.

The latter, it seemed, was the Seglawi Jed-
ran colt, which the Anezeh had promised to
send to me for inspection. Before we could

[ 167 ]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

leave the tent Haflfez sent word to us to stay
in our tents as long as possible. This Se-
glawieh Jedranieh mare, he said, was the finest
possessed by the Anezeh. She had been
brought, not to be sold herself, but to show
what her colt was worth. He would buy the
colt as cheaply as possible and then, later,
would refer in an off-hand and indifferent way

Curious vtsltora much astonished at watcblng me sketch.

to the mother. Through the flap of the tent
we admired the pair. Mother and son were as
much alike, in general character, as two peas.
There were the same markings on tbeir white
[168]

I

II

II
II

11

ll

3IY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

legs, the same general character of hind qnar-
ters, and the same Teiy ^racy'^ appearance
throu^out.

We dressed and walked to where the two
were standing on a plot of grass about
twoity feet square. There was mudi delay in
getting the colt. Haff ez, the wisest old horse-
trader of the desert, thought it was not best
to buy him too quickly. He and the Bedouin
had agreed closely enough to a price to make
the final arrangement an easy matter; still he
thought it would be policy not to hurry the
deal. He wanted to wait; not that it would
make any difference in the eventual price of
the colt, but it would make it easier to buy an-
other colt, a yearling and a f uU brother of the
one in question. jSIoreover, in case we wanted
to bargain for the mare, the effect of an hour's
delay might mean something notable in the
matter of price.

After all there is a fascination about this
oriental bargaining. Arabs will never set a
price on their horse. Unless your price suits
him he will lead his horse away, nor will the
desert Bedouin under any condition tell a lie
about his horse's breeding.

After breakfast the Bedouin was brought

[170]

STARTING ON RETURN JOURNEY

to me, his hand was placed in mine, while the
Arabs jabbered and I knew that the colt had
finally been purchased. The Bedouin even
promised that he would go to his tent and bring
the yearling brother of the colt, a chestnut with
the same markings, and join us where we were
to camp that night, five hours on towards
Aleppo.

As we departed the mare was a picture.
She walked with the grace of a well-bred
woman; her tail would gracefully sway from
side to side ; her ears were ever in motion, and
her eyes sparkled. The very sight of her rest-
ed us from the long day's ride of the day
before and then she broke into a gallop and her
swinging tassels were soon lost sight of as she
disappeared on the horizon.

The mother out of sight, we turned to look
at her two-year-old son. He seemed finer than
others we had of the same age. There was an
inherited dignity which the rest did not have.
We were already anxious to see his full brother
which was supposed to be better still. Both
of them were sired by the great Hamdani-
Simri chestnut horse that the Anezeh are so
proud of and thus combined the two rare breeds
of the desert, the Seglawi Jedran and the

[171]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

Hamdani Simri. The mother was a Se-
glawieh, and thus according to desert rule the
colts were of blood of the Seglawi Jedrans.

That night we camped at a village owned by
relatives of Akmet Haffez. At ten o'clock the
Bedouin returned with his beautiful mare,
bringing her baby and last child, a chestnut
colt, big for his age, with white in the face, and
with the same peculiar white feet as his mother
and brother. His mane and tail were light
yellow, giving him a babyish appearance. He
was even finer than the two-year-old.

Again I was driven away by Haffez (who
wanted to drive a close bargain) lest I might
show how much I wanted the mare for which
he soon wanted to make an offer. I went into
the tent, but was very restless. I could tell
there was some friction. Finally I saw the
Bedouin mount the mare and start off with
the yearling by his side ; and, after hearing that
Haffez had let the bargain fall through be-
cause of a difference of four pounds ($16.00) ,
I got him to reconsider. A man with stout
lungs brought the Bedouin back and again his
hand was put in mine, and the yearling was
bought. And now for the first time I thought
we were to make an offer for the mare, but

[172]

1

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I

I
11

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

'Hiaffez, it seemed^ had tried to drive a bar-
gain for both the mare and colt, and had fafled.
The colt was taken to his brotiier and tied to
the hind leg* He stood like a little man and
his brother was glad to see Imn. The mare's
only other colt had been bought the year before
by the German government for two hundred
and fifty pounds* Thus she was a source of
revenue which they did not want to lose.

Before her owner mounted the beautiful
mother to ride away, I approached her, and,
true to the Bedouin custom, she refused to let
me come near. She bit at me and pretended
to kick, and all this while ragged Bedouins were
patting her, and patting her; but me she
watched like a hawk.

All our attempts to buy her proved unavail-
ing. He put us off by saying that he would
have to consult his family. He promised
faithfully to come to us again the next night,
but he did not and so the story of the event-
ual })urchase of the mare is the more remark-
able and must be put down in its proper place.

[174]

CHAPTER XIV

ANOTHER PRESENT — HASSAN TASSHIN PASHA

AND HIS HORSES.

The route of the next day's journey took us
more to the south, and as we passed an en-
campment of the Sebaa Anezeh, a brown mare, ,
with a filly colt not more than fifteen days old
at her side, was shown to us. Haff ez was es-
pecially anxious that I should see this filly, as
it was sired by the horse I was riding (the
Maneghi Sbeyel), and was his double over
again, without a white hair and with the same
peculiar head. She was a dainty little thing
as she played round her mother, but I was
afraid she could not stand the long ride to
Alexandretta. Haffez, however, thought oth-
erwise, so I finally bought the mare and
filly. They were of the family of Hadban
Enzekhi, the first we had seen in the desert,
and I was glad of the opportunity to buy them
as it completed the purchase of representatives

[175]

ANOTHER PRESENT

of all of the members of the Khamseh, or five
great families. The mother was a most showy
animal, with remarkable shoulders and hips,
and the most graceful neck and tail carriage.
As the Bedouin owner galloped her here and
there over the rocks to show her off, she was a
beautiful sight. It seemed the Bedouin
wanted to sell the mother and not the filly
colt, but Haffez knew what he was after, and
bought the two at what he considered was a
price for the mare alone. Her former owner
followed us to Aleppo and then offered us six-
ty-five pounds Turkish for the colt, which was
then twenty days old. But I kept it.

It will be remembered that the owner of the
distinguished mare we wished so much to pur-
chase had said he would join us that night, and
all night the lonesome colt had been calling for
his mother. He clung to his brother, but
would call to every passing horse or camel.
When we moved towards Aleppo, however, he
strode alongside of his brother, and had for-
gotten all about his mother before we stopped
for the night. All night we waited for the
Bedouin and mare, but they did not come.
The next day a courier came with a message
that we might have her for fifty pounds more

[177]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

than we had offered, and though it seemed use-
less, we sent a messenger, and a soldier, with
the money to bring her to Aleppo.

On our return to Aleppo we were the sub-
jects of great curiosity. All of the distin-
guished Arabs and Turks came to see our
horses, and they were much admired.

The Governor's son, Hickmet Bey, had been
presented by the Gomussa tribe wdth another
Maneghi Sbeyel, to take the place of the one
which they had given to me. We went to see
him. He was two years old, imshod, and stood
a fraction over fifteen hands high. He was
the most powerfully made horse, I think, it
has ever been my pleasure to see. His re-
markable hips and shoulders were a sight.
There was not a flaw in him. The Bedouins,
when they came near him, all bowed. They
thought he was a special creation of God, be-
cause he had three black feet, the only white
being on the left fore foot, which is a special
mark of Allah. He had a small star on the
forehead, the strip growing wider as it came
to the nose, so that it took in one nostril
which was completely white. The white ran
to the under-lip, and this was tattooed in blue
in imitation of the women of the desert. One

[178]

i
I

P
i

mi

m

I
I
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its

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

of his eye-balls was white. In this country such
a thing would be disliked in a horse, but in the
desert it is commonly found.

Every time I looked at Akmet Haffez he
closed his fist and held it up to his head, to
show what a remarkable colt this was. To
cap the climax the Governor's son told me that
as he had not yet made me a present he would
give me this colt. With all the thanks that
I could scrape up I took him, and he was hur-
riedly led away to join the rest of the horses
which were picketed at the Maidan, just out of
Aleppo.

While at the Governor's we met Hassan
Tasshin Pasha, the wealthiest citizen in Alep-
po, though an exile. The Pasha was one of
the most distinguished-looking men I had ever
seen. He was as cheerful as an exile could
be, and lived in the best house in Aleppo. In-
stead of pining over his fate he had taken to
breeding Arab horses, and he was a stickler for
fine blood and an expert with pedigrees. He
believed that there were very few Seglawi Jed-
rans left in the north of the desert, and that the
Hamdani Simri were confined almost to the
Shammar. We eagerly accepted an opportu-
nity to see his horses.

[ 180 ]

Hassan Tahseln Pasha, exiled in Aleppo. This distiaguished
general was one of Che highest men under the otd Sultan of
Turkey. His popularity with the people throughout Turkey,
Dotwlthatandios that he was one ot the rlehOBt men in tbe
Empire, alarmed the Sultan until through fear ot the Paeba's
popularity be trapped him into exile by asking hlni to go to
Aleppo to be the governor of Syria. On bis arrival when the
troops met bim as he thought as an ovatioD. he was intornied
that Instead he was an exile lor life. Whether the new TurU
movement releaaea this wan with many other notable men
from exile liCa at this writing I am unable to tell. I naturally
suppose It doeB, however.

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

The first mare that was led into view was a
flea-bitten, tall and well-made gray mare,
standing more than fifteen hands high. She
was a Kehileh Heife, a breed much prized, as
we had found out from the Anezeh, and play-
ing at her side was a baby horse colt, foaled
in June of that year. The colt was fat and
husky and was chasing dogs. At a distance he
looked like a Clydesdale, without the hair on
his legs, and much resembled Reysdack's
"Hamiltonian."

The Pasha was pleased at our admiration of
his horses, especially as he had been apologiz-
ing for them. Indeed they were as fine as any-
thing we had seen in the desert, especially a
three-year-old Kehilan Heife stallion, stand-
ing fifteen hands, without a white hair on him
a dark gray Dahman Shahwan, two years old
a three-year-old chestnut stallion, a Segla^vi
Jedran, brought specially for the Pasha from
Nejd, and a chestnut filly two-year-old Kahileh
Heife, daughter of the flea-bitten gray mare.

We saw Akmet Haffez in conversation with
the Pasha, and soon the latter began to talk
with much emphasis. It seemed that Haffez
was trying to compel the Pasha to sell us the
three-year-old bay stallion and that the Pasha

[182]

ANOTHER PRESENT

had felt embarrassed at being considered a
horse-dealer. But Haffez insisted and finally
prevailed.

The next morning we went again to see the
Pasha's horses, and immediately he and Haffez
were at it again, Haff ez's price bothered our
host, and the latter made the declaration that
he would not sell them at any price, but if I
wanted to accept them as gifts I could, I was
afraid Haffez would destroy our friendship
with the Pasha, but he seemed to know what
he was about and finally compelled the sale of
the three horses at prices which he thought were
honest. So, amid much excitement, the gray
mare and her colt, and the three-year-old, were
picketed with our lot.

And we parted the best of friends. The
next day he called on us at the hotel with the
Governor. This in itself was an unusual pro-
ceeding and the proprietor of the hotel was
much excited over it. It was with much re-
gret that we said good-bye, and as they drove
away in a carriage drawn by two gray Arabian
stallions, we felt very proud to think of having
such friends in even s^ch an out-of-the-way
place,

[183]

CHAPTER XV

WE SAY FAREWELL TO AKMET HAFFEZ AND
START FOR THE COAST — "tHE PRffiE OF THE
EUPHRATES" COMES TO US AT LAST AND MEETS
HER TWO SONS,

That night brought the beginning of our
farewell to the desert, for we were to part with
Akmet Haff ez and for the last time to break
bread under his hospitable roof. Crowds had
gathered around his house. Strange Bedouins
whom we had never seen, were there to say
good-bye in their solemn cordial way, but the
old man was all smiles (for us), as he per-
sonally superintended the spreading of the
boimteous feast.

And so we too feigned light-heartedness, in
spite of an imdertone of sadness. We would
eat his food — and then leave a friend, one of
the best we had ever met. Few men in anv
coimtry would have gone out of their way
so far as to have done for us what this diplo-

[184]

WE START FOR THE COAST

matic, far-seeing old Bedouin had done. The
Governor of Aleppo had told us that Haffez
was looked upon as the smartest and shrewdest
Bedouin that the Ottoman Empire had ever
known. But we knew more of him. With his
jocular humor and sarcasm and his true gen-

study of MuaoQ— Btlll, listeDlng.
tlemanly manners, he made us feel as if we
were leaving home and going abroad to some
strange land.

At this final meeting he was just what he
had ever been. His speech was always full of
flamboyant oriental exaggeration, but it was
different from that of bis kind — you knew that
he meant what be said. The Arabs have a
word "Halamy," which being much of a slang
term, can best be transferred into English (or
rather American) as "hot air." The Arab
showers on you all sorts of fine phrases and
[183]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

you accept them with a grin and say to your-
self "Halamy," and letting it go at that, im-
mediately forget it.

But with Akmet Haffez it was different.
After you had once gained his friendship you
knew that what he said was never "Halamv."
At that last feast (shall we ever forget it?) we
sat for a long time and, as we ate, joked of the
trials we had had in the desert, laughed at
the thought of getting a real Turkish bath
when we reached the coast, and wondered
whether we could stand the sensation. Then
as the end drew near our mood changed, and
Akmet Haffez began what in any other
Bedouin would have been "Halamy."

He gave thanks to Allah that we had come to
him and that he had been spared to see us.
Our going, he declared, was the great sorrow
of his life, but he had this one great consola-
tion: We had learned to eat rice with our
hands with the Anezeh and we ought to stay
and be real Bedouins. By the brightness of
our eyes ( so he said with a kindly twinkling of
his own) we had won the tribes, and their
friendship would always be ours. So almost in
silence we finished the meal, and went to the
street below to say good-bye. Rare and beau-

[186]

WE START FOR THE COAST

tif ul presents had been bestowed on us, and dis-
tinguished people came and were presented,
and when we walked down to the carriage there
was a procession.

As I turned to say good-bye, I thought
I saw in his motions that Akmet Haffez
wanted more than a hand-shaking. So though
awkwardly, I admit, I presented both cheeks
and was seized in fond embrace by the old
Bedouin, who broke down and began to sob
almost aloud. He called to the interpreter to
come closer, and taking him by one arm asked
him to tell me that now indeed he had a brother
in America, and that if I did not return soon
he would in a few years come to make me a
visit, to see if I had preserved the blood that I
was taking away in his horses. Turning then
to Moore and Thompson, the old gentleman
with dignity, though weeping, bade them good-
bye, while crowds of Bedouins stood close to
the carriage. His stalwart son, Ali, also came
and then we were driven away to the
Maidan on the outskirts of the town, where, on
a grass plot, our horses and mares were picket-
ed ready for the march.

Yet we were loth to start, and there was an-
other reason for this beside our unwillingness

[187]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

to part from Akmet Haffez. The Seglawieh
Jedranieh mare, whose two sons we had bought
and to complete whose purchase we had sent by
a soldier the fifty pounds extra demanded by
her owner, had not appeared. All through the
dinner Akmet Haffez had been noticeably con-
cerned over his non-appearance. At first he
smiled and said that the heat might have de-
layed his coming, or that some accident might
have happened. But as the time went on he
became more serious. We were compelled to
leave that night in order to catch the steamer at
Alexandretta four days later and we had our
large string of horses to convey 106 miles.

As the servants were serving coffee the sol-
dier came in out of breath and he had not
said many words before Akmet Haffez^s eyes
blazed with anger and he arose and picked up
a rifle from the couch. What was the trouble?
This simply: The mare's owner had counted
out the fifty poimds brought by the soldier and
then had demanded further a revolver he had
seen one of our party carrying.

That was what had roused our host. He
had given his word before Allah that we should
have the mare and he would keep his word if it
took rifles to help him do it.

[188]

WE START FOR THE COAST

And the old man had his way. "I will send
to get the mare," said he. "My own son Faiot,
who is also your son, shall go and he shall bring
her back alive or her owner dead." I yielded,
not without hesitation, for I wanted the ani-
mal, as she was the best in the Euphrates val-
ley, and, anyway, to ease my conscience I sent
along the revolver which her owner had de-
manded. Faiot and the soldier started at once
on their fifteen hours' ride as we broke camp in
the opposite direction. They would try to
catch us on the second night.

It was nearly two o'clock before we were
ready to march. The young stallions had
rested from their trip from the desert. The
barley and the regular feed which they were
getting was beginning to tell on their condi-
tion and it was with difficulty that the man led
some of the two-year-olds, so frisky were they
and so full of play.

We rode all night and until the sun was hot
and at eight o'clock in the morning stopped at
Kafar-al-Teen, the spot named after the
famous bandit of that name. All-night travel
is not best for man or beast. The horses were
tired and sleepy and, worse still, Moore was
sick and not improving. The heat of the day

[189]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

affected us more than if we had not been travel-
ing the previous night, so I planned a new pro-
gramme. We would start that evening at six
and ride three hours, then rest during the com-
paratively cool night so that the little colts
might sleep.

The men of the caravan objected to this and
threatened to leave us, but I insisted, and so,
backed up by Thompson and Moore (even
though the latter was sick, he looked to them
big enough to lick a dozen Arabs), they
stayed. That plan saved us. We camped at
nine-thirty and at ten the young horses were all
asleep, and when we started at three in the
morning, some of the two-year-olds were hard
to hold. We rode from three to seven, and
then stopped until evening.

At sundown Moore was getting steadily
worse. I was watching the pious Bedouins
performing their evening devotions with their
faces towards the east when I turned to look
at the sunset. It occurred to me, seeing
Moore's condition, that the west was the place
for us to pray towards and said so to Moore.
He was so sick he could hardly hold up his
head, but he managed to lift himself a little
and said that if we could manage to hurry him

[190]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

toward the west, a little nearer Broadway, he
would feel better. And we tried. We got
him on his horse somehow and started on again.

One of the horses, a golden bay from the
private stables of Hassan Pasha, was sick, too,
but that was nothing. A local veterinary in-
deed offered to cure both Moore and the horse
with one prescription, which he declared was in-
fallible. He said that if the sick man should
lead the sick horse past the graveyard both
would immediately recover. He guaranteed
the cure before Allah. We declined with
thanks. Besides, there wasn't any graveyard.

It was now the third night out from Aleppo
and there was no news from the mare. Sud-
denly about nine in the evening there was a
cry of "Faiot," and the son of Akmet Haffez
came galloping up on "The Pride of the Eu-
phrates." She was the same beautiful ani-
mal despite her journey. Her eyes had
the same sparkle and she looked better than
when we first saw her. Some of the grooms
were watering the horses at a nearby
stream, and her colts were away from the camp
ground at the creek. But while she was still
resenting our approach, the chestnut orphan
colt came in on the run. He was all excite-

[192]

WE START FOR THE COAST

ment; his eyes glistened and his ears nearly
touched each other at the points as he ran from
one horse to the other. His excitement was
so great that we shall never forget it. It
seemed as if such an unexpected meeting had
never taken place before. Those who may
think that dumb animals have no way of ex-
pressing their feelings, should have been pres-
ent at this twilight celebration. The colt fair-
ly kissed his mother and his joy knew no
bounds. He tried to be her baby again and
suck, forgetting that he had long been weaned.
He kicked up his heels and cantered about,
stopping to lick her all over. Then, with a
squeal, he started, with his little tail high up,
to run and run round her. He almost stam-
peded some camels with his antics. He ran
so close to the other horses we were afraid he
would trip on their hobbles. He forgot he was
tired and leg-weary, forgot his baby feet
had no shoes. Fifty Arabs and grooms, and
we three, were half laughing and crying to-
gether to see the boy celebrate his joy. All
this time his mother acted bashfully as if she
were saying: "Don't mind him; he's just my
boy." The grooms tried, when he was tired
out, to fasten him near his brother, but no hob-

[198]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

bles would have held him. He wanted to sleep
by his mother. He was not content imtil he
could.

The interpreter then had a story to tell.
While the colt was celebrating the reunion, his
once owner was not so happy in Aleppo.
When the son of Haffez went to him with the
revolver the owner found fault with the
weapon, saying it was not the one he wanted.
He was so sore that before he would give up
the mare he declared he would leave the
Anezeh tribe and go to Brihem Pasha, who, to
get the blood of his mare in his tribe, would de-
fend him with his six thousand armed men.
Whereupon the soldiers covered him with the
very pistol he had sent for, while Haffez's son,
Faiot, took the mare by force. Later he was ar-
rested and brought to Aleppo because he had
broken his word about a horse which he really
did not want to sell. But if we had achieved one
horse we wanted we had lost another. The
golden bay had died while the celebration of
the colt was going on, and before the last tent
wagon left the spot the jackals were barking
on the mountains nearby.

The next day at Alexandretta, the Arabs
from the mountains knew all about the bay

[194]

BRIHEM PASHA

This ratlipr remarkable photograph, remarkable owing to
the history surrounding it, was taken in UrFab by an English
traveler. The Pasha at that time was the Governor ot that
FrovlQee, but on being recalled by the Sultan, he and his
soldiers turned outlaws and Sei to the Desert with their arms
and ammunition wltb the hope at the death ol the Sultan to be
able to defeat the Anezeh. On hearing that this photograph
had been taken ot him — the only one ever taken of him— <he
Pasha sent an officer to kill the possessor of the picture and
destroy it. The man was killed and the photograph torn In two
and thrown in the street, the officer fleeing to the Desert to
avoid arrest. The reproditction here shows where it was torn
and mended. Brihem Pasha did not live to fulHll his prophe-
cies, as he was assassinated a little ovc^ a year ago by agents
Of the Anezeh.

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

mare, though we had not told the story to a
soul. They came to see her in great numbers,
and were sorry she had been taken away from
her owner.

That night two New Yorkers sat beside her
and played pinochle till daylight, and when she
was safe on board the steamer, I felt the relief
that only her presence on the steamship could
bring.

[196]

CHAPTER XVI

WHAT ONE MAY OVERLOOK IN THE SHIPMENT
OF HORSES — WE LEAVE THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
AND ENTER ESSENTIAL PART OF IT AT LEAST,
ALTHOUGH SURROUNDED BY SPIES.

How that pinochle game came out I do not
remember. Maybe I won, but whether I did
or not, my mind was more set on evincing the
game of horse — that is of getting my purchases
safely out of the country.

When you're at home sitting on the shady
side of your porch and planning the exporta-
tion of Arab horses, there are some details
which you overlook while seated in a comfort-
able rocking chair. Generally, when you are
reading of the exportations which have been
made into England, you read something like
this:

"We brought from Damascus, or Aleppo, a
bay mare." Then follows a description of how
this particular mare enjoyed the grass in the

[197]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

paddocks in England. So I had been care-
less and even ignorant of some of the things I
afterward learned must have happened be-
tween the time that horse was purchased in the
desert and when you again hear of it in the
English paddocks.

Before getting to Alexandretta, I had or-
dered, by wire, from Mr. Jackson, the Amer-
ican Consul there, lumber to build stalls on the
boat ; and had given little thought as to how the
horses were to be loaded on the ship. Until
I reached that part I had no idea how diffi-
cult that would be. If Mr. Jackson had not
gone ahead with the work, and had not had
boxes constructed for me, I could not have
shipped my lot of horses for at least two
weeks. He had made contracts at the lowest
bids and every carpenter in the town, who was
well enough to work, was working day and
night on the boxes. Mr. Jackson was con-
stantly after the carpenters and the work was
done on time.

If you have never put twenty-seven stallions
and mares into the first boxes, or stalls, they
have ever seen, then there's something in life
which you have yet to experience. The day on
which the embarkation began was very hot.

[198]

THE SHIPMENT OF HORSES

The poisonous mosquitoes were dipping under
your hat-brim like bees. On the dock you were
conscious that there was a spy, who was there
smiling at you and to you and anxious to hold
his umbrella over your head. You allowed
him to do this, but at the same time you knew
that he was watching to see if he could not find
some way to stop you legally. You also knew
that in the little town, possibly between the
wharf and the place where your horses were
tied by the legs, were men who would like to
steal some of the .choicest ones, especially the
Seglawieh Jedranieh mare, or the Maneghi
Sbeyel stallion. If those men once got on the
back of any of these horses nothing could catch
them. It would be a short run of an hour into
the mountains and then — the desert, where
evprything is lost. A fortune you knew was
waiting for the man who could get away with
the brown stallion.

These trifling details had never been in my
mind when I was at home rocking in the shade,
desert-dreaming, but they were forced on me
now with other little things. Nevertheless the
shady porch in Morris Plains at the other end
of the journey was on my mind as well as th^
thought that I was determined to win out.

[199]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

At the last minute, tiiougfa the good healtli of
the horses had been testified to by a veterinaiy,
other yeterinaries stood waiting to be tipped
and bribed, lest they should get into trouble
with the Turkish spy, who was anxious to have
his name go before the Sultan. All this time
the heat was getting more intense.

It was ten o'clock and we'd been up since be-
fore daylight tnring to hurry thmgs along.
Barley was being shipped aboard, seven thou-
sand pounds of it, as well as hay, or stuff which
they call hay. The first horses were being
brought to the boat, and to try and get some
relief from an upset mind, I asked them as a
favor to bring the Manegfai Sbeyel stallion
along first. He had never seen a box-stall
and had never been asked to walk into one
before, but I thought that with his broad fore-
head he would know more than some of the
other colts. The Maneghi approached the
box. With five hundred curious town Arabs
looking on, he stopped for a moment to gaze
at it, and then at the first asking he walked
in with a majestic swing that characterized all
his motions. The door was closed behind him
and fastened by an iron bar.

It was I, I think, who suggested that a

[200]

THE SHIPMENT OF HORSES

bandage be tied over his eyes before they low-
ered him into the lighter, but when we covered
his big black eyes he began to get nervous, and
at the first move of the box he nearly got out
of it. When he made one real effort, the box
that had looked so stout, bound as it was with
iron, seemed as frail as a chicken coop, and
we wondered if it would ever hold together till
we got to the steamer. Faiot, Akmet Haff ez's
son, had come with us and he knew the stallion
better than we did. He saw what the trouble
was and tore the bandage from the horse's
eyes. Then the Maneghi peered out of the box
and into the water and immediately grew
quieter.

The horse never moved after his bandages
were taken off. He was calmer by 50 per cent,
than I was during the whole operation. The
next they brought was the chestnut two-year-
old Deyr colt. He had been so playful when
we bought him that there were a double set of
hobbles on his legs and even with them he
cavorted round. But like the Maneghi Sbeyel
he walked into the box, and without a bandage
over his eyes he was perfectly quiet, looking
over the landscape as they swung him up into
the air, and down into the small boat, without

[201]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

even a move. In the meantime another diflS-
culty had arisen. While these stallions were
gentle and kind, still they would fight if they
could put their noses together, so I asked some
of the Arab grooms we had brought with us
to hold each one by the head. Then, an im-
derling of the spy, whom we suspected, object-
ed. He told our interpreter that no man
would be allowed to go with us to the boat for
fear they might leave the country. We tried
to explain. We told him that if the stallions
were left free to nip at each other's noses, the
soft wooden boxes would be smashed to splint-
ers. But there is no reasoning with spies.
We had to appeal to Mr. Jackson and he final-
ly gave his word that each man who went to
the boat would be returned, and finally it was
settled that way.

Among these grooms was Said Abdullah,
whose name translated means "The Happy
Servant of God." This cheerful person (for
he was nearly always on a broad grin) had
been the slave of Akmet Haff ez, and when the
latter had given the Seglawieh mare to me, he
announced casually that Said went with her.
Of course, that was something of a poser. I
tried to explain to Haffez that in America

[202]

THE SHIPMENT OF HORSES

slaves did not exist, but I am afraid my ex-
planation was not very clear. At any rate he
insisted that as the boy had been brought up
with the mare, or at any rate with her sons and
daughters, he should go with her wherever she
went. The mare was going with me, said
Akmet Haffez; so was Said. The logic
seemed perfectly clear to his mind. He dis-
missed the subject at once and considered the
incident closed. As his guest I could do no
more than follow suit and Said as a faithful
servant (both of us had forgotten the word
slave) has followed the fortune of Wadduda
ever since.

We worked hard all day getting the horses
aboard and it was nearly dusk when the last
lighter came alongside with Consul Jackson.
We compelled all the grooms, four of whom
I had intended to take to America, to return
to the shore, to be checked off. I went ashore
with them to sign a few papers of release, and
incidentally pay a few more bills. Following
us at every step we took were the agents of
the spy, and when we were having our last
meal in MacAndrews & Forbes's house, they
paraded round the doorstep.

It appears that, by some accident on the part

[203]

MY QUEST OP THE ARAB HORSE

of the customs official who was checking off
the horses as they were taken aboard the lighter
at the dock, Said, my boy, had been checked off
as coming back, and it had not been noticed
that he had gone out to the lighter with an-
other bunch of horses. He had crawled in
under the bales of hay, and to anyone on
shore he might have been taken for a monkey
scaling up a rope which hung down the side of
the big boat as he scrambled aboard. He was
there, but I was not supposed to know it. All
I was certain of was that he was on the boat.
After supper, with the sea beginning to get
rough and choppy, we started for the ship an
hour before she was to sail and to our aston-
ishment found on board the three Arabs whom
we had left on shore. How they got there I
do not know and never asked. Said was still
missing, but we had an idea he would turn
up somewhere and after the steamer was under
full headway we started to himt for him. We
searched and called for a long time without
answer, but finally, behind the "war mare's"
box, crouched down under some sacks, we
found him. He was all eyes and the whites
of them seemed bigger than all his coal-
black face. It was a long time before we could

[204]

THE SHIPMENT OF HORSES

make him understand that it was safe for him
to come out, but once out he soon saw that he
was past danger of being caught and ten mfti-
utes afterwards he was as busy as ever feed-
ing and watering the horses.

Anchoring next day at Latakia, Thompson
went ashore to get some tobacco. I had made
up my mind to take advantage of the stop and
finish up some pictures that I had under way.
Moore was not feeling entirely fit, though much
better, so stayed aboard, too. Then Thomp-
son returned and said he had found the Gov-
ernor's staff getting boats ready to come out
and call on us, as the Governor had been noti-
fied by the Governor of Aleppo that we were
on the steamer with the finest horses that had
ever come out of the desert.

I was for sticking by my pictures, but
Thompson and Moore insisted, on the other
hand, that we should call on the Governor, es-
pecially as he had been told of our arrival by
the Governor of Aleppo.

So, not expecting anything out of the ordi-
nary, but still against my wishes, we went
ashore. There was some whispering between
Jack and Arthur on the way in to the land, and
some laughing. My trousers were consider-

[205]

3IY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

ably torn about the knee and other places from
riding; I had no tie, and there were a few other
details of dress missing that ordinarily are of
little importance in Oregon, anyway, but it
seemed to be fun for the boys. Later I saw
why.

When we approadied the dock we saw that
the town was in holiday attire. The (Jovemor
of Aleppo had dwelt at much length on the
importance of our visit and the streets were
jammed. As we walked off the dock into the
carriage waiting to take us to ite Gk)vemor's
Palace, the crowd kept looking for another
boat bearing the GREAT PEOPLE. They
must have thought we were the advance guard.

Reaching the palace Thompson and Moore
could hardly keep down their mirth. I saw
then for the first time that the holes on the
shins of my trousers looked a little bigger than
they had before, and I felt the lack of that tie.
We had to pass the Governor's guard, con-
sisting possibly of a thousand soldiers, who
were drawn up in double lines. As we passed,
most of them knelt. Thompson had been
through the same performance in the morning,
but when the Governor had asked him for the
letters from President Roosevelt, and the doc-

[206]

THE SHIPMENT OF HORSES

uments from the Sultan, which the Governor
of Aleppo had mentioned in his telegram, Jack
had told him that they were on the ship with
another man, so it was for these docmnents the
town was in gala attire, and not for the men
who carried them.

We marched past the soldiers to the entrance
of the palace and the Governor stood in the
middle of the doorway with outstretched hands
to meet us. I may have been dressed queer-
ly — I will even admit it; but when I saw the
Governor I felt better. He was very short
and very wide — ^what you would call a pon-
derous small man, with a white beard, bald
head, and straight white hair down the back.
He was a man of much importance in the Sul-
tan's list of great men, having once been Gov-
ernor of Bagdad. We went in and the serv-
ants dove here and there with the standard old
regulation refreshments of coffee, cigarettes,
more coffee and so on, and then in some very
beautiful cut-glass tumblers, purple lemonade.
We had been used to red thick lemonade, but
this was purple. The Governor could not
speak English, but his secretary knew a few
words. After half an hour's visit, we were
driven round in a grand review of the town

[207]

MY QUEST OP THE ARAB HORSE

with soldiers esoorting our carriages. Thai
we were taken back to our boat, joined by all
of the Governor's staflF ^o wanted to see and
inspect the horses and mares.

From Latakia to Naples, the trip, so far
as the horses were concerned, was an unevenl -
ful one. We had ample opportunity to re-
cover from the strain of the last days spent
between the desert and Alexandretta and es-
pecially from the wear and tear of the shipping
of the horses at the latter port. Early on that
day I had nearly succumbed to the heat and
was obliged to go on to the steamer. Moore
had very nearly recovered from his sharp at-
tack of fever, but was still weak, and a great
deal of the actual work fell upon Thompson.

Active and strong as he was, he must, how-
ever, have received in his system some germs of
the pernicious fever which one always finds in
Alexandretta. He was in perfect health at
the time and kept in perfect health until late
in the fall of last year (1908), when he was
attacked with a sudden fever, the symptoms
of which indicated that he must have first been
inoculated with it in Alexandretta. I regret
deeply to add that the attack was fatal and
that our companion of the desert passed away

[208]

THE SHIPMENT OF HORSES

almost before we knew he was ill. Thompson
added greatly to the pleasure and success of
our trip. He had the knack of seeing the
cheerful side of life and thoroughly adapted
himself to any conditions. He never had a
word of complaint and his good humor helped
us through many unpleasant times.

[209]

CHAPTER XVn

XAPf>i» AND 80>rE OF THE MI8FOSTIJNE8 WSICH
OVERTOOK U8 THESE — AMERICA AT LAST.

Whex we readied Xaples we felt relieved.
We thought our troubles were over. Accord-
ing to our contract with the steamship agent
in Alexandretta the horses were to be trans-
ferred from the steamer to a barge and then
to the Nord America, a much larger boat,
where they would be put on the middle deck in
the hold. But we were wrong. Our troubles
were only beginning. We learned almost at
once that the Nord America was filled up
with emigrants and that the horses would have
to be put ashore, and possibly taken to a stable.

Argument was of no avaU. We had to take
the horses ashore, and the only consolation for
the "shindy" that followed was that Naples
had for once a real horse show. The young
stallions had been eating their heads off for
two weeks on a smooth Mediterranean voyage

[210]

NAPLES

and, as I expected, once their feet touched the
ground they were almost unmanageable.
They simply could not walk. They bucked,
and played, and reared, and squealed. The
place where we disembarked them was as
thickly jammed with people as is Broadway at
Fulton Street at the noon hour. Beside the
crowd there was a switch engine nmning up
and down past the docks. That added to their
fears.

The horses had been lowered in their boxes
from the steamer to a barge, but when the
Customs Dock was reached it was necessary
toitake the animals out of their boxes and lead
them on the- dock. Then the boxes were
brought on to the dock and the horses had to
be led into them again. That sounds easy. It
was simple enough to do it in Alexandretta
when the horses were tired out with their long
trip. Now they had had two weeks' rest and
plenty of food.

The boxes were made of soft wood and it
seemed as if the excited animals would kick
them to pieces. The men on the barges were
bringing the horses ashore too fast and we had
more than our hands full. The brown stallion,
the Maneghi Sbeyel, our pride, had torn out

[211]

NAPLES

the front of his box at one sweep of his fore-
foot, and long wire nails threatened to pierce
his flesh at any moment. The Italians, who
were handling the horses for the shipping com-
pany, had no more horse sense than Chinamen
who had never seen a horse. My one stand-by,
Said, who knew more about Arab horses than
all the people in Naples, I could not find for a
long time. When I did he was just where I
wanted him to be. He came off the barge
leading our favorite Gomussa, the blue-lipped
colt, our finest animal. The colt, all excite-
ment from the squealing of the stallions, was,
for the time being, transformed into a wild
horse. He reared, and jumped, and kicked,
and snorted, and stamped. The black groom
hung to him and tried to pacify him by yelling
an Arab word, "Nam," "Nam," "Nam," but
Gomussa had forgotten his Arabic. He
didn't hear. He struck the groom with his
forefoot and knocked him senseless, apparent-
ly, against an iron fence. I caught the colt
by the halter, and he threw me off, but Said,
who was not hurt, again grabbed him, and was
hanging on by the head.

Neither of us had been injured, but a mo-
ment later he struck Said again, and this time

[218]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

the groom was laid out. As I threw all my
weight to try and keep him from climbing into
the box of the Maneghi Sbeyel, some Italians
placed a box in front of him, and he ran into
it. Quick as a flash Said was closing the
doors. Then we tied his head, but that did
not stop him. He kicked and the boards and
splinters flew, and to make matters worse he
started the others to kicking. But Said was a
wonder. He got hobbles from the barges and
at the risk of his life secured the horses, and
eventually we got the animals all ashore.
It took all of Said's skill to quiet them and
there was much kindling wood left on the
docks. The horses had kicked their boxes to
pieces.

And it was very discouraging. Said
and Thompson were the only ones that kept
up. The former insisted that Allah was with
us and had imbued Thompson with the same
faith. I could see no hope. The next day
all the satisfaction we could get from the
steamship company was permission to take
the horses out of their boxes to a stable across
the city. The route to it led through the nar-
rowest of streets and it was my personal de-
sire to put the animals back on a barge, but

[ 214 ]

NAPLES

that was impossible. I feared the worst from
the attempt to lead them through the streets.
However, there was nothing else to do and so
our Naples horse-show began.

The procession was to start with the bay
Seglawi Jedran two-year-old colt, the oldest
son of the war mare, for he was sensible and
quiet. Then was to come the brown stallion,
the "Pride of the Desert," and after him an-
other two-year-old. The other stallions and
two-year-olds were to follow and the mares
and colts were to come last. I was to bring
up the rear with the man who was leading
Wadduda, the war mare. I made Said lead
the blue-lipped colt, with the best groom in
Naples at the other rein, and I also had two
men leading the Maneghi Sbeyel.

To my surprise, when the order was given
for them to back out of the stalls, the proces-
sion moved oflF quietly and the horses took no
notice of the trolleys, or the automobiles, which
were all around them. Wadduda was gay and
prancing, but her main fret and worry was to
keep up with the horses on ahead. As we
passed close by the equestrian statue of Vic-
tor Emmanuel, the grandfather of the present
king, showing him mounted on an Arab stal-

[215]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

lion, I looked up with a sigfa, wishing fhat I
could change places with him. I thought I
was more fit to handle the statue. We reached
the stables, though, and got in without acci-
dent.

We got back to the hotel and the tempera-
ture began to drop rapidly. The clouds were
getting black, especially round Vesuvius.
The wind howled and within an hour the hail
was battering the blinds oflF. Jack Thompson
came in, and slapping me on the back said :

"If you'd had your way, and put 'em back
on the barges, how many horses would you
have alive when morning comes?" I replied:

"Jack, none."

He said : "You're right for once. I tell you
that Allah is with you, and you don't know it.
Said knows it and if you will just make up
your mind to that I believe that our horses will
all reach New York safely. This trip has
been managed by someone else, and that's
been proven a dozen times."

It was nice to believe, if vou could believe
it. It was an easy way out of the trouble.
But it did not seem true, until next morning
we saw the wreck of the barge on which I had
wanted to leave the horses. It was in splint-

[216]

NAPLES

ers. Other ships had broken their anchor
chains. Then it seemed that Allah had indeed
saved us. The faith of Said was often com-
forting. And we needed the comfort, for we
seemed to be completely sidetracked. We ap-
pealed to the American Consul at Naples and
that official did everything both officially and
personally. He communicated with all the
officers of the steamship company, but all of
them said in effect: "You will have to wait."
Wait! We who were just back from the East
knew what waiting meant! Just simply —
never.

I had in my pocket the bills of lading which
called for the delivery of the horses in New
York on September 28, but that seemed to
make no difference with the steamship com-
pany. The local agent explained easily that
we would have to wait for the next boat, the
Italia. The Italia arrived at Genoa en route
for Naples and we were informed that she
could not take horses because of the emi-
grants. Each day brought a new plan. Now
we would ship the horses to London, but no
boats would take us to London ; now we would
ship to France, but no boats would take us to
France^ now we would charter a special steam-

[217]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

er, but there was no special steamer to charter.
Should we be obliged to rent winter quarters
and just wait as the agent of the steam-
ship company had said we should do? That
was not to be thought of. I decided that some-
thing had to be done at once.

I sent a telegram to the King of Italy, ap-
pealing to him as a horseman. I told him
that though my horses had been billed through
to New York by an Italian line, they were be-
ing held up indefinitely. The Italia in the
meantime had arrived, and the captain repeat-
ed that he had orders to take on no horses, and
that he would not think of doing so, as he had
more emigrants than his ship could comfort-
ably hold. Then I played trumps and cabled
to the President. An answer arrived from
Washington that carried with it a punch. It
was plain and simple, but it demanded an im-
mediate reply. It read :

"State Department at Washington wants to
know if it is true that this shipment of horses
is held on account of emigrants being shipped
to America."

There was a good deal of action just then
roimd the office of the steamship company.
Ambassador White, at Rome, demanded an

[218]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

answer to a telegram whidi he had sent and as
a result the Italia was detained a day in
order that the horses might be taken on board.
True, there was no other aeconmiodation for
them except on the upper deck, in the very-
bow of the boat, where they would be exposed
to all kinds of weather that might come along,
but I consented to ship theuL I did this under
protest, as our contract demanded that from
Naples to New York the horses were to be
carried between decks.

Marching back to the steamship dock the
horses paraded like a cavalry troop. They
had created a good deal of interest in Naples
and thousands of people had gathered daily
to see them exercised in a small park which
had a bridle path, and when we started for the
steamer the streets were lined.

At one crossing the crowd was very dense,
just leaving a leeway for the horses to pass.
The blue-lipped colt was giving us the most
trouble of any. He had on a blind bridle
and it bothered him because he could not see
behind him or to the sides. There was a hump
on his back that showed what he might do if
the proper occasion came. Right at the thick-
est point of the crowd, a young boy stood with

[220]

NAPLES

a large board on his head on which were many
pies. Before I could yell to him, as the blue-
lipped colt came by he slapped the beast on
the rump, and almost instantaneously the colt
kicked the pie counter off his head. It was
done so quickly that the boy didn't realize
what had happened. As he looked behind him
to see who had knocked the pies off, they went
rolling in every direction, while the hundreds
of people roared with laughter. The pier
was reached without further mishap and the
horses were hoisted on the deck of the Italia
way up among the anchor chains.

At the last minute Jack Thompson agreed
to go on the ship with the horses, permitting
Arthur and myself to take advantage of a
faster boat which would get to New York a
week before the Italia. There was nothing
that could be done during the voyage, for any
of the horses, that Jack Thompson could not
do, so we left him, with the belief that Allah
was with him, and would see him safely
through. Allah was good and the horses ar-
rived safely. More than safely indeed.
Many of them had caught bad colds and
coughs in Naples, but when they reached the
dock in Hoboken they were in perfect condi-

[221]

..^ ^o:: <r-' ♦-srr.

'/* ^^<./^^ '-r t'li^ i.--^ Vr=r?i xrL Jjf lit^

",1 ^-.^-^r '-tt -,/U aV fTF-

■*'*1J

*>f'' (.'/^ \yr/fXrj \;xj z:x\ 'AZ.^ S> I

//f •/> ^//f v^ ifr'^^^^i f/j^di. *i>ii^ tLir^gs. bat at€
f^,' ,f >^/M ^i( UkX^/'^t "^n/j^ went oo for ser-
^ f^l /J/f/* MfitJI ♦^^ ^^^ alarmed- 3IaiiT of
f^'« umr^'n ]H'^'fiUut ^aiint for want of nouridi-
\UK tiffH\, TUy woulrl rrx/t in their bedding
1/^ \mui for f(f(nl hkfi that to which they had
\t^'*'n hrniHUfUuul, Ho we fooled them in this
♦v/iyj wi< /k»|irinlili'(l the bottom of their box
mImIIm wilii cul-iip tiity dampened, with oats and
inl(hllliiK« wnd i\wt\ bedded over it. When
llH>y rootiul In the bedding they found this

[ 222 ]

NAPLES

food, and within two weeks began to eat it
out of the manger. And so the desert horses
came to America.

We could not but feel some elation over the
fact that the importation had been successfully
carried out. It is a far cry from the home of
the Anezeh to Morris Plains, and, as we had
found, the journey was beset with difficulties.
To have overcome them all and to have
brought the string of horses in safety to this
country was a satisfaction, to put it as mildly
as possible. I will not speak at length here
of the successful results of the importation,
but perhaps those who have followed the story
of the Maneghi Sbeyel stallion, "The Pride of
the Desert," the gift to me from Nazim Pasha,
will like to read of his achievements here. He
has proved that horsemen are the same the
world over, whether they wear the rough cloaks
of the Bedouins spim under camel-hair tents
or frock coats built on Fifth Avenue. The
Bedouins followed us from the desert to the
coast, breeding two mares a day to him.

When we reached America, our horsemen
also picked him from the rest as the best ani-
mal of the lot. He was written of by experts
and horsemen as being of the Morgan type, as

[228]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

we had noted when we first saw him in tiie
Governor's palace in Aleppo. In the follow-
ing June, after his arrival in America, he was
shown at Rutland, Vermont, at the horse
show, in an open com{>etition with stallions,
for the "Justus Morgan Cup/' In this con-
test he met representatives of the finest strains
of the Morgan horse of the present time and
he won. That alone was sufficient compensa-
tion for the trouble and expense of the entire
journey.

[224]

CHAPTER XVIII

OF SAID ABDALLAH AND HIS NOTIONS OF

AMEEICA.

Said Abdallah, my Bedouin groom boy,
constantly asserted all through the voyage
from Alexandretta that Allah was with us and
would bring us in safety to the end. His faith
had helped us out of the dumps in Naples and
his devotion to us and to the horses should not
go unremembered. When Akmet Haffez
presented to me Wadduda, the war mare,
Said came with the gift and ever after counted
himself as one of my family. To guard him
against fits of homesickness or melancholy, be-
fore he had learned to speak any English, I
often took him with me, especially when I took
my own children to shows and circuses. He
had never seen even a street fakir in his own
country, so that the strain was naturally very
heavy on a brain so undeveloped and at first
it seemed a little dangerous to show him the

[ 225 ]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

wonders of the New York Hippodrome, but I
did. No eyes ever saw as his did that after-
noon. He had never seen elephants, nor any
pictures of them. He had not even heard of
the beast. His first query was to ask if they
were real, or just made of cloth. He saw
Mermaids come from the water and return
again. If the roof had dropped in and sprung
back to its place. Said would have thought
it was on the regular programme.

After each show his brain was worn out for
a day, and occasionally severe headaches fol-
lowed, but his comments were often delight-
fully true.

Especially are his criticisms on the high-act-
ing horses of the National Horse Show worthy
of publishing here. He had never seen a
horse artificially exhibited. He came from a
race of people who, strangely enough, believe
that if God did not intend a horse to hold its
head up, it is a shame to pull it up with
a chain. He also had the curious idea that if
a horse does not elevate its tail naturally, it
is cruel to dock the tail. Of course such ideas
are desert barbarisms, but at the Horse Show
they sounded naive and amusing.

One day, accompanied by an interpreter, he

[226]

OF SAID ABD ALLAH

went to the Horse Show, and saw there for the
first time, a good team of high-acting horses,
a pair that almost bmnped their chins with
their knees. At first his eyes nearly bulged
from their sockets. He held up his hands in
horror as he exclaimed "Mashalla! Mashal-
la ! Is there truly a race of horses that go up
and down in the same place?"

When told that what he saw was the result of
training and artificial breeding, and that the
horse himself was not to blame, he uttered an
exclamation of pity. Then he said suddenly:
"No," and pointed above him; "the desert isn't
up there, but always in front of you ; God made
a horse to get over it with the least effort, not
the most." I have no comment to make on
these remarks of Said. I do not think any are
necessary.

Within a year Said had mastered enough of
English to get along in ordinary conversation,
especially if it pertained to horses. There was
only one thing he could not understand and
does not to this day. He cannot comprehend
how the newspapers know that it is or is not
going to rain to-morrow. He admits that
God knows, but he is doubtful if any news-
paper does.

[227]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

He is as fine an example of faithfulness as
could be found. After he had been in this
country nearly a year, and had beaten off many
attacks of blues, Dr. Frank Hoskins of the
American Mission at Beyrout, Syria, came to
the farm to see the horses, and talked with the
boy who had been with the Anezeh. Reach-
ing home in the evening, I was informed that
ever since Dr. Hoskins had taken his depar-
ture Said had been crying. Evidently a fit of
homesickness had seized him. I went to the
bam to see him and he came smilingly from
one of the dark comers. But I could see that
his eyes were much swollen and still wet with
tears. I asked him if he had enjoyed his talk
with the visitor and he said he had, for he had
spoken Arabic as if he were at home. He
tried to appear happy and with forced en-
thusiasm told how Dr. Hoskins had admired
and liked Wadduda, the war mare, and "The
Pride of the Desert," best of all the horses.
But he was plainly homesick for the sights and
smells of the desert and there seemed to be no
way to console him. His broken English only
made his protestations that he was happy the
more pitiful.

[228]

OF SAID ABDALLAH

"Said," I said at last, "you have been
crying."

"What cry, Mr. Davenport?"

**Your eyes," I answered, "are ahnost
swollen shut with weeping."

His head dropped and his chest began to rise
and fall. After a moment or two he said :

"Mr. Davenport, before Allah, my heart no
mad."

Then he broke out and exclaimed that at
night when he shut his eyes his thoughts took
him to the Anezeh, and he joined the tribes as
they swing to the south. Now they are past
Deyr and approaching Nejd they get into war
with the Shammar I Then he wakes up and
finds that he is not in the desert, but in Mor-
ris Plains. He turns on the other side and
sleeps ; and by and by his brain goes to Aleppo
and when he meets his once great master,
Akmet Haffez, he grasps him by the hand.
Again he wakes up, and he is still in Morris
Plains.

"But, Mr. Davenport," he added bravely,
"Allah knows my heart no mad."

"Well," I said, "Said, I am going to send
you back to the desert."

"Said go desert?"

[ 229 ]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

"Yes," I replied, "you are going back to the
desert."

He broke down with hysterical laughter,
and grasping me by the hands commenced to
kiss them, and tell me that I was too good to
stay in this country, that I ought to live with
my brother in the desert.

"Mr. Davenport, Said go desert two or three
months?"

"No, Said, in two or three weeks. I will
find a ship, if I can, that will take you direct
to Iscanderoon, Alexandretta. There you can
follow the old Roman road across the moun-
tains to Aleppo, and from there the camel car-
avan route to the desert."

I turned and walked away, bidding him
good-night, and had nearly reached the house,
when he called to me and asked if I would say
before God that my heart was not mad. I will
admit that after dinner I went to bed early,
and did not get much sleep.

I got up before daylight, still restless, and
went out, and there in the north pasture saw
an impressive spectacle — ^the trying out of
Said's religious faith. Wadduda, the war
mare, dressed and draped in all her beautiful,
wild regalia, was in the pasture. From her

[230]

OF SAID ABDALLAH

neck hung the beads of a wUd tribe, and from
the desert saddle long flowing tassels swayed
in the morning breeze. It must have taken
Said half an hour to have draped her. Stick-
ing in the dirt at her side, towering over her
head ten feet or more, was the war spear from
the Anezeh. Kneeling on his prayer rug in
front of her forefeet was Said, facing, as I first
thought, the strip of timber across the road.
But as I watched the picture I saw that he
was praying toward the light spot on the hori-
zon — toward Mecca. I watched for fully five
minutes. The boy touched his lips and fore-
head with an upward stroke of the hand, and
dropping both hands beside him, looked intent-
ly for a moment at the approaching dawn.

Rising up slowly, he picked up his little
prayer rug, lifted his spear from the damp
earth, while the beautiful prancing mare came
to his side. Her tail was swinging proudly
from side to side.

As they approached me I saw that Said's
eyes were, if anything, more swollen than they
had been the evening before. To cheer him
up, I spoke to him first.

"Said, I thought when I saw you in the pas-

[281]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

ture that you were some member of the
Anezeh that had come to see me/*

"La" (no), "Mr. Davenport Said no see
Anezeh."

"You are going back to the desert."

"No go desert. All night Said no sleep —
sit down, no lay down. Go Wadduda stall,
pray ; come back, no answer — no sleep — pray,
no sleep."

Turning, he pointed out into the pasture to
the little knoll, and said that there a few mo-
ments ago Allah had answered his prayer.
When he found where Mecca was, he had
prayed to Allah and Allah had told him
that he was not to go back to the desert ; that
he had been given with Wadduda by Akmet
Haffez to me; and that he was going to stay
as long as Wadduda lived — ^would stay even
when she was gone, with her colt and her colt's
colt, and was never going back to the desert.
He has never been homesick since.

[232]

CHAPTER XIX

THE BEDOUIN OF THE DESERT — HIS SON AND
HIS DAUGHTER, HIS CATTLE AND THE STRAN-
GER THAT? IS WITHIN HIS GATES

The desert Bedouin is to the Ottoman Em-
pire what our Indians were to North America.
He is of two kinds — ^the agriculturist and the
warrior who carries the lance. The two
classes are in great contrast, but when you
have seen both you incline towards the former
notwithstanding all the poetry and glamor
which attach to the fighter. Despite their
racial likeness you can see the difference be-
tween them at once. The agriculturist is, of
course, the more domestic. He stays pretty
much in one place and is content with a mud
house and a few camels, and maybe a mare or
two. He is apt to have many sheep, and long-
eared black goats, and possibly ten or twenty
head of strange-looking cattle, together with a
few chickens and turkeys. He is a much kind-

[233]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

er-Iooking man than his fighting brother. He
lives close to the ground and likes the smeU
of it.

The warrior is an idler. When he walks he
swings his long robes with an indolent grace
that impresses you witli the idea that he is
not hurried for time. He has no occupation
other than war, therefore his plans are not
made far ahead. He keeps one mare, at least.

One of thp young men ol the Aneaeb.

always saddled so that he may spring on her
back at the slightest alarm. Near where she
is picketed his long spear is stuck in the ground
ready to be seized for immediate action. But
otherwise he is lazy.

He sips coffee all day long, and smokes al-
most incessantly. He is fond of talking of
horses and firearms, and prides himself on be-
ing a gentleman. But he will not work. His
[284]

THE BEDOUIN OF THE DESERT

eyes often gleam with a wild expression; every
motion and gesture he makes is artistic and he
is well imbued with the innate sense of polite-
ness which does not need to be taught. Though
you might be the first white person he
ever saw, his manners are always those of a
gentleman. He visits all day long, and until

quite late in the evening; he is liable to get up
at any time in the night and have coffee, and
smoke, and talk, and he is generally in a good
humor. But he will not work. He has a gen-
eral air of weariness.

As a matter of fact, with the idea of fight-
ing constantly in his mind, he really believes
[235]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

that he does not have time to work. As long
as he has enough for himself and his horses he
is perfectly willing to lead the hand-to-mouth
existence which his ancestors have led for hun-
dreds of years before him. To-day he does
not know where he will be to-morrow. Al-
though he has, in a way, a fixed route of travel
he can never be sure that it will be carried out
entirely according to the rule. He does not
sow any crops, for he does not know
who will reap them— ahnost certainly not him-
self. Why then should he work? He can al-
ways depend upon his brother, the farmer.

But imdemeath his indolence of manner,
his slowness of movement and his chariness of
speech — ^behind all his apparent inertia and
lack of initiative — every now and then you get
a glimpse of a crude, elemental force, the ex-
istence of which you had not even guessed.

At first it startles you. You have been re-
ceived with the grace and charm of true hos-
pitality. You have been made entirely at
home in your strange surroundings. You
have given up wondering how such polished
gentlemen (and I use the term in its best
sense) could be found in such a desolate, bar-
ren, God- forsaken country. Then — ^just a

[236]

THE BEDOUIN OF THE DESERT

look, perhaps at some inadvertent remark you
may have made ; maybe a gesture, slight in it-
self, but full of significance, changes the en-
tire aspect. The whole thing is undefinable,
but as you look through the flaps of the goat-
hair tent under which you are sitting and out
on the desert you realize that the warrior
Bedouin is in his right place. In a fertile
country, clothed with verdure, he would be out
of place; trees and buildings would spoil the
picture of which he is the central figure.
There is that about him which needs for its
existence the great expanse of sterile nature
you see around him. Elsewhere he would
shrink into a mere curiosity. He would pass
into the type you are apt to see at Coney
Island.

The Anezeh are the most powerful of all
the Bedouins; they are the greatest in war
and therefore they rank the highest. They
are a migrating tribe, circling the desert an-
nually. In winter they keep near Nejd in
Central Arabia, where it is warm and where
the feed is better. As spring approaches they
start north along the Euphrates, passing
Bagdad and Deyr where they sell some of their
colts and then keep on into the northern part

[287]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

of the Syrian desert, near Aleppo, where they
spend the summer months among the pastoral
tribes.

As fall comes they start across the upper
end of the desert, brushing over past Palmyra,
and on down in the direction of Riad. This
schedule has been in force ever since the his-
tory of the desert has been recorded.

All Bedouin Sheikhs hold their position by
inheritance, and among the great sheikhs of
the desert there have been some notable men.
Faris, the late head of the Shammar tribe, was
a man whose memory has already become a
tradition. Though constantly their enemy, the
greater men of the Anezeh tribe told me of his
goodness and his courage. He was honesty
itself. Once when his tribes had robbed some
of the agricxiltural Bedouins of their sheep, the
losers went to the great sheikh himself, and
told him how his tribe had ravished their
flocks. Instantly Faris told them to go and
count out the same number of sheep from his
own personal flocks and take them home. He
was made the brother of Wilfred Blunt, Esq.,
twenty-nine or thirty years ago. At his death
the whole desert mourned, feeling that one of
the greatest of their kindred had passed away.

[ 288 ]

THE BEDOUIN OF THE DESERT

One of the rarest souvenirs that we brought
from the desert was the last seal of Faris
that the Anezeh ever saw. This was a fine
black impression on the pedigree of the
Abeyan Sherrakieh mare, on which Moore had
made his memorable ride. Although he had
been their life-long enemy, the Anezeh gave it
up rather reluctantly and only under pressure
from Akmet Haff ez.

Hashem Bey, the Sheikh of the Anezeh, has
been ruling since he was twelve years old. He
told me his tribe numbered 70,000 tents, and
would average six or eight occupants to a tent.
The great Anezeh are divided into many tribes
and sub-tribes, chief of which is the Sebaa and
the one containing the finest horses. All of
the sub-tribes, however, acknowledge Hashem
Bey as their highest ruler and on matters of
great importance they are boimd to obey his
orders under their own Sheikh. They all unite
when a big war is on. They own together
about 300,000 camels, and unless an Anezeh
has a hundred sheep and five camels he is not
allowed to maintain a tent. With that num-
ber, however, he has the right to marry four
wives.

The Anezeh, as may have been gathered,

[239]

MY QUEST OP THE ARAB HORSE

are habituated to war and robbery. They
believe that to cultivate the soil is to sink
in the esteem of their fellow men, so they pre-
fer to be dignified, and die, if possible, on
horseback, or at their horse's feet on the field
of battle. They own immense flocks of sheep
that must produce fine wool as well as mutton,
as they are the "fat-tailed" variety. These,
with goats, and their camels, are their chief as-
sets except what they get by robbery. They
do not, as a rule, fight anmig themselves, but
they rob the Arab» who have settled down to
farmings or tfiey war on other tribes, especial-
ly the Shammar, and its sub-tribes across the
Euphrates. They fight, in the main, with the
lance, but in recent years they have acquired
quantities of rifles, and it is estimated that the
Anezeh have several thousands of guns.

As I have said before, the true Bedouin is
a gentleman. In natural politeness he is un-
equaled. He eats with his fingers and some
of his personal habits are not pleasant, but
his hospitality is unsurpassed and even if he
hates you he has the knack of making his hos-
pitality appear entirely genuine. You may
be his personal enemy, as well as his tribal
enemy, still, if you come and touch his tent

[240]

r fc - - - - ^ - ^ -' -I " ' *■ < i * l - -^ — « ^ ■».' > -aj-^-t,-iv^^*"-|

THE BEDOUIN OF THE DESERT

rope, he is bound to protect you; you are
his guest. Young boys who had never
seen a white man before, when we passed,
if they were sitting, arose. When you go
to a man's tent, or especially a Sheikh tent,
though you may have, as we had, fifty in our
party, and many animals to feed, you are his
guest for three days, and he will not let you
pay for anything.

To offer a tip would be an insult to the
poorest Bedouin. In the middle of one night,
when we stopped to drink from an old well,
a ragged Arab held my horse and gave
me some grapes. It was between two and
three in the morning, and you can tip most of
us at that hour. There was no one close
enough to see him when I tried to hand him a
piece of silver, but he shoved it back without
a word, a thing I didn't think would be done
in any country of the world. There is some
answer to this, but no one seems to know what
it is. I certainly do not. In Aleppo they
would take money of any kind and in Beyrout
you were afraid they woxild take your life.
And on Broadway did you ever offer anybody
any money at any time of the day or night and
have it refused?

[241]

MY QUEST OP THE ARAB HORSE

If you yawn they think you are tired, and
will leave you so that you can sleep. Nothing
would induce them to enter your tent until you
had entered it. If a Bedouin tells you the
breed of a horse, or mare, you can bet it is true.
They believe in just a plain simple God, and
think that if they do right God will be easy to
please. They marry as many as four wives,
and think they are happy. Wh^a one is di-
vorced she is kept by the tribe. Morally they
are of the highest type. They don't inter-
marry with colored slaves. They seldom, if
ever, marry out of their tribes. A Bedouin
girl could not, or woxild not, marry the tribe's
blacksmith, because of the disgrace of marry-
ing a man who works for his living.

The Bedouin women are much like the
squaws of the American Indians. They are
seldom seen unless when packing the camels at
moving time. They disfigure their faces by
tattooing, and all of them stain the lips blue,
which is a sign of beauty. Though they have
to do the cooking they are never seen aroimd
the tents. The men stroll here and there as if
they belonged to some great club, which in a
way they do. Their Sheikh's tent is their club
and there they go and come at will. There

[242]

THE BEDOUIN OF THE DESERT

they sip black bitter coffee and talk about
borses. They have great reverence for the
owner of a celebrated mare, and when such a
man enters a tent, those present rise, not in
honor of him, but of the mare. Wars are
commonly started with another tribe to get
possession of a mare whose blood they want.

Camels for the Royat Daughters.

I do not think the Bedouin is much of a
horseman, aside from being a great rider. He
is kind, and has much patience, but his horse-
shoeing, which is the most awful in the world,
proves he isn't a real horseman.
[ 213 ]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

In judging his horses he is different frona
the average man, and I think his theory is one
of the best. The Bedouins we met laughed
over the few Europeans they had seen coming
to buy stallions for the various European gov-
ernments. These men, they said, instead of
looking at the horse's head, looked first at his
feet and ankles. They could not understand
that. If they were going to trust me with
their purses and, what was more, their life,
they declared they would look first, for twen-
ty minutes, in my face and eyes and not pay
so much attention to my feet. While it was,
of course, understood that a horse's legs and
feet should be perfect, still a horse showed
even what his legs were made of by his head
and no horse was ever better or worse than
what his head showed. They defied me to pick
out one of the distinguished war mares that
did not show her distinctive characteristics
more plainly in her head than in the rest of
her makeup. And I found they were right.

Horseflesh and horse-lore are the same the
world over, after all. After returning to this
country I told Mr. James R. Keene, the great-
est of our turfmen, of the Bedouin method and

[244]

_____ __^ , - _ - --^ :m« < ~>r • ^L^K^K^^^^M^^^J*^**'^^^^*

THE BEDOUIN OF THE DESERT

he said that he followed it himself. He told
me that for years he had been in the habit of
picking out, as the most likely of his colts and
fillies, those which had the best heads, and he
added that he had seldom been deceived. The
heads showed better than the heels of what stuff
the youngsters were made.

I found out from observation and experi-
ence, that whatever the Bedouin tells one about
his horse, and of the horse's character, you
generally find to be true. I had no oppor-
tunity of judging the truth of the statement,
that when they are in war for three days the
horse is better on the third day than on the
first, but I did see that on the third day a small
Abeyeh Sherrakieh mare, carrying Arthur
Moore and his weight, carried him easier than
she did on the first day.

In looking back at that smnmer trip in the
desert I should say that we learned more than
anything else to take things as they come. Of
course we could not have done otherwise, but
at least we learned not to complain — ^too
much. In our general American life we com-
plain if we are asked to eat off a table-cloth
which has once been used. We rather object
to drinking from a glass of water if another

[245]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

person has drank a sup from the same glass.
We sometimes complain at hotels because the
sheets are not changed more than twice a week,
but all this bluff disappears quickly when we
have borne the hardships of the desert in the
summer time. There we found ourselves shov-
ing a camel's head to one side so that we could
drink the riled muddy alkali water from a pool ;
we thought nothing of being the last, after
twenty Bedouins had drunk out of a wooden
bowl of sour milk. After you have eaten two
weeks with your hands, knives and forks seem
awkward. You can, in fact, pick out with
more accuracy and speed a choice piece of mut-
ton with your fingers than you can with a
spoon, and this means something when you are
squatting round a meal with thirty Bedouins
each with as long a reach as Fitzsimmons.

We learned to ride all day in the heat and
perhaps part of the night and then be glad
to lie down in a Bedouin's bed a minute after
he had climbed out of it, and we ate with zest
from the same mound of rice as the rest of the
tribe. After all, the desert is the great leveler
and it shows us how trivial and artificial we
are in some ways in our civilized life.

[246]

CHAPTER XX

THE ARAB HORSE AND HIS PRESENT STATUS —
SOME STORIES FROM THE DESERT.

There has been a great deal of speculation
as to where the Arab horse originally came
from. He has been the subject of myth and
fiction and tradition for so long that the truth
about him is hard to ascertain. He has been
dated as far back as Mt. Ararat by writers who
gravely state that he and his companions
walked off Noah's Ark and began to breed
and multiply in the general region where he is
now foimd. We are past the Ark age, how-
ever, and after all it makes little difference to
the modern reader to know the exact origin of
the Arab horse as long as he is what he is.

The Arab horse is a type by himself. He is
distinctly different from all other horseflesh,
not only in the formation of his bone structure,
but in his temperament. He stands alone. It
has been thought by many that there are two

[247]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

breeds of Arab horses — ^a large and a small,
but that is incorrect. There is but one general
breed, and this breed is subdivided into many
families, all of which are different and dis-
tinct. All the families are descended from
certain great historic mares.

Among the Bedouins all the emphasis is
placed upon the maternal line. As long as
the sire of a horse is kaown to be "Chubby"
(meaning a thoroughbred from which an
Anezeh would be willing to breed), he is of
little account. The colt gets its value from
the blood of the mother. That seems curious,
too, in a country where women are very httle
more than slaves.

Ill-advised supporters of the Arab horse in
this country have brought him into a great
amount of criticism by trying to show that he
is a racer in our sense of the word. In our
sense of the word! Thank heaven he is not.
The average American race-horse of to-day ( I
yield to no one in my admiration of such splen-
did animals which men like James R. Keene
breed) exists simply that bookmakers and
gamblers may "earn" a living by robbing the
ignorant and gullible of money they cannot af-
ford to lose.

[248]

li

;i

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

Racc'tracks to-day are kept alive for that
one purpose. The methods of the bookmakers
are almost as sure as those employed by a man
who throws a gun into your face and asks you
to throw up your hands. There is no escape
for him. Even the honest men who race their
horses for sport are his tools without know-
ing it.

The Arab IS a racer, but he wins through
his endurance. To criticise him because he
is not the equal, in short dashes, of the horses
we have bred from him, is utterly imjust. To
condemn him because he does not lend himself
to the uses of the gambler is surely high praise.

Yet not only the modern race-horse, but his
brothers of a more useful type, owe a large
part of what they possess of speed, endurance
and intelligence to the Arab. The importa-
tion into England of the Darley Arab (see ap-
pendix) , and the Godolphin Arab or Barb (no
one ever knew which he really was) , marked a
new era in horse-breeding. From them and
their progenitors came most of what is best
in our horses the world over. The Arab blood
is to be found in the Percheron; it gives his
distinction to the Russian Orloff, that most
useful of horses, and it is dominant in the Han-

[250]

V ^ .-^ 1. ..-.•

STATUS OF THE ARAB HORSE

overian, French and German cavalry horse, not
to speak of some of the best types produced in
England.

Is he to be condemned then simply because
the only things he shows are intelligence,
power, beauty, a distinct type of real poetic
individuality and honesty and because he lacks
extreme speed for the short distances which
gamblers of the present time have set, that they
may fleece the always unsuspecting public ?

I have pressed the Arab horse into all kinds
of service, and, in his home on the desert, I
have seen him accomplish in the matter of
weight-carrying, tests that I would not have
believed he could have performed. In my
home I have seen him on the carriage working
as honestly, and as faithfully, as any horse that
was ever hitched, although his ancestors knew
no collars. I have seen two Arab stallions
driven together by a child, in safety. His ene-
mies will cry that he is small — that he is a pony,
but that the Arab horse, in his native country,
stands close to fourteen hands and two inches
I have foimd from the examination of hun-
dreds of them. As a matter of fact his size is
merely a question of the feed given him when
he is a colt, which is shown by the fact that

[251]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

among the Gomussa tribe of the Sebaa Anezeh,
who pay better attention to their horses than
others, we found colts of two years standing
fifteen hands high. At the Circassian villages
on the Euphrates, where they take even better
care of their live stock than the Bedouins, we
found the Arab horse much advanced in size.

When you see the method of his rearing in
the desert you come quickly to one conclusion.
Instead of being a small horse, he is, in reality,
the biggest horse known, when you consider
the hardships which he goes through from the
day he is bom. From the first he is hobbled
from fore foot to hind foot, and from fore feet
and hind feet to pins driven in the ground.
In that way he spends his entire life when not
under the saddle. His feed consists of a nose-
bag full of dusty, dirty chaff and ground-up
wheat and barley straw which has been
threshed by the hoofs of cattle and donkeys
treading over it as wheat was threshed in the
days of Abraham. This dusty, dirty chaff is
all he ever gets in the way of hay; and that,
with a nosebag of barley, constitutes his daily
rations.

I am speaking now of horses reared by the
best tribes. They are watered only once a day,

[252]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

and the water is a strong alkali lime mixture,
which is, possibly, accountable for the great
bone of the Arab horse, so finely exhibited in
the skeleton of the great "Marengo," Napo-
leon's war horse captured on the battlefields at
Waterloo. They are never taken in under
shelter from the sun, neither are they protect-

Showlng the wild steel shoe with small hole In center.

ed from the storms of winter other than by a
flannel blanket. The Bedouins ride them at
two years old, and sometimes take them into
war at three. They are shod by the so-called
blacksmiths of the desert, who, in reality, are
criminals, and ought to be shot. The frog of
[254]

STATUS OF THE ARAB HORSE

the horse's foot is practically cut out and then,
with a didze, the hoof is made to fit the shoe,
which is a solid piece of oval steel, having a
small hole in the center. These shoes are
nailed on with big nails.

Horses fed on this kind of food, some-
times going from twenty-four to forty-
eight hours without feed or water and still
able to gallop hour after hour, and day after
day, without collapse, must have great powers
of endurance.

In disposition the Arab horses are gentle
and very affectionate. They will scratch their
heads and necks on you just as they would on
a hitching post. They seem to have no fear
of anything, not even of man. We did see
several instances where mares of the desert,
which had never seen white people before, ob-
jected to our coming close to them. But that
was not really fear. Some people believe that
the Arab horse is a wild ferocious animal ; that
he is almost untameable and that he is captured
on the desert with the greatest difficulty, but
the most ignorance is shown as to his color
In 1905, while exhibiting four stallions at the
Lewis & Clark Exposition, in Portland, Ore-
gon, I had many opportimities of observing

[255]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

this ignorance. One lady was very much sur-
prised at seeing bay, gray and chestnut horses
shown.

"All the Arabs I have ever seen working on
hearses," she said, "were coal and black."

Another declared that her father had bred
Arab horses as long as she could remember and
that instead of being small they were large
and spotted like leopards, with long flowing
manes and tails. Another woman, who
claimed to have been the secretary to General
Colby, of Beatrice, Nebraska (the gentleman
who owned the Grant stallions at the time of
their death), said:

"For more than twelve years I rode the
Grant stallions every day; I am quite
astonished to see horses shown as Arab horses
that are bay. I supposed all Arab horses were
exactly like the two presented to General
Grant, snow white, with pink skin and blue
eyes."

Circuses are, perhaps, more to blame for the
misrepresentations of the Arab horse than
anything else. I have a friend who owns a
circus, and I saw his posters a few years ago,
claiming that he was exhibiting the only Arab

[ 256 ]

STATUS OF THE ARAB HORSE

horses ever brought to America. He said they
were captured with great difficulty and
brought to New York by a special permit of
the Sultan ; that they were of the family known
in history as the Eagle Feather Horses, so
much prized in the Queen of Sheba's days ; that
they were snow white with black spots. I had
but a few years before told my circus friend
where he could find one of these alleged eagle-
spotted Arab horses, at Albany, Oregon, at
which place, I believe, he purchased it.

How the tradition arose that the Arab horse
is spotted, is difficult to imagine. The pure
Arab is never spotted. That color only comes
from the crossing of different breeds and that is
a thing which is never done in the desert.
Among the Anezeh, bay is the most common
color, and white horses, though very fashion-
able in the desert, are very rare. During our
entire travels I only saw one pure white mare,
a Maneghieh Sbeyel, which I purchased. The
skin round her eyes and nostrils was of a dark
blackish blue, and her head was of extreme
beauty. Out of a hundred mares among the
Anezeh, you would find thirty-five bays, thirty
grays, fifteen chestnuts, and the rest brown.

I saw only one that I would call a black

[257]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

horse, and that was a Maneghi Hedruj, of a
very small size. Roans, spotted or piebalds
and yellows are not found among the Arabian
horses, though roans and yellows are common
among the Barbs. The bays often have black
points and generally white feet, with some
white in the face. The chestnuts vary from
the brightest to the dullest shades.

The Gomussa, of the Sebaa Anezeh, are the
shrewdest horse-breeders of the desert, and are
so recognized even by their enemies. They
have kept in the largest numbers, specimens
of the five families which are called the Kham-
seh. They also have the choicest of the
sixteen other families which are rated equal
in point of blood. The Khamseh, according
to legend, descend from the five mares which,
with other mares of King Solomon, were
drinking at a river after a hard battle, when
the trumpet blew, calling them back to the con-
flict. Only five responded to the call. It was
these five which f oimded the five great families,
of which the first is :

1 — The Kehilan Ajuz. This strain is
numerous, and from it all other Kehilans are
offshoots. The words Kehilan Ajuz mean "the
mare of the old woman," and of course they

[258]

STATUS OF THE ARAB HORSE

have a story which is this: A traveler riding
a very fine mare, stopped near the middle of
the day at a well owned by an old woman and
asked permission to water his momit. While
the mare was drinking she was giving birth to
a filly colt. The traveler, being hard pressed
for time, gave the colt to the old woman, so
that she could care for it and rear it, if possible,
on the camel's and sheep's milk. The rider
proceeded on his way and rode steadily mitil
dark, when he stopped in the open plain for
the night.

At daylight he was astonished beyond meas-
ure to find that the colt he had left with the
old woman, although but a few hours old, and
having never reaUy seen its mother, had
made its escape and had tracked her
across the desert, and was there by her side,
nursing. Thus came the name. Among the
Kehilans, bays are more numerous than those
of any other color. They are the fastest of
Arab horses, though not the hardiest, nor the
most beautiful by any means. They bear a
close resemblance to the English thorough-
breds to which they are nearly related. The
Darley Arab, perhaps the only thoroughbred

[259]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

Anezeh horse in our stud books, was a Kehilan
of the sub-family called Ras-el-Fadawi.

2 — The Seglawi Family. This family
descends from four great mares owned by a
man of that name. At his death he gave his
favorite mare to his favorite brother Jedran,
and thus the Seglawi Jedrans are the favorites
of the Seglawis. He gave the second mare
to his brother Obeyran; the third to Arjebi,
and the fourth to El-Abd, meaning the slave.
Many writers consider that all four mares were
full sisters. The Seglawi-Arjebi are extinct,
and of the remaining strains, the Seglawi Jed-
ran ranks first in the esteem of the Bedouins,
while the Seglawi-el-Abd come second. Some
years ago Abbas Pasha, Khedive of Egypt,
purchased nearly all of the Seglawieh Jed-
ranieh mares from the Anezeh tribe, paying as
high, so they told me, as £3,000 for a single
old mare.

8 — Hamdani. The Hamdanis are not
common anywhere in the desert, the Shammar
being supposed to have the best. They are
mostly grays, though very handsome browns
and chestnuts are to be found among the
Shammar. The only strain of the Hamdani
which are cotmted "Chubby" are the Hamdani

[260]

STATUS OF THE ARAB HORSE

Simri, and while the Hamdani Jassel were fre-
quently met by us, they were not considered
"Chubby" by the Anezeh. The fastest walk-
ing mare I ever saw was a Hamdanieh Simrieh
filly that was ridden into the desert by Akmet
Haffez. She came originally from the Sham-
mar, and was later purchased by me and
brought to America. She was a dark bay four
years old. I believe that in a walking con-
test, with the best walkers that could be found
in the country, she would be five miles ahead of
them at night.

Sheikh Ali, of the Abou Goumese tribe, told
me of the meaning of the name Hamdani Sim-
ri, and the reason why the strain was more pop-
ular now, and yet rarer than the Seglawi Jed-
ran. He said that once the Anezeh tribe had
a great mare, a bay Seglawieh Jedranieh.
She was so fast that nothing could catch her.
Once, a few weeks before she was to foal, she
slipped her hobbles and fled to the open desert.
They went after her, but she could not be
caught, and finally, when her colt camdKrwmm
afraid of men and ran away and the mother
followed the colt. The tribe offered rewards,
but none could catch her. All of the various
strains tried, Kehilan after Kehilan, but all

[261]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

failed. In the long run a man named Simri,
who owned some horses of the Hamdani breed,
came with a big horse with full round belly
and offered to catch the mare and colt. The
Anezeh laughed at him. The horse had to be
beaten to make him even walk fast. But the
man insisted to be allowed to try and the sec-
ond day the horse went better and began to
show spirit. Finally the Anezeh took the man
to the place where the mare went daily to drink
and told him to try his luck. At noon the
mare and her colt came and when the latter
saw the horse, and the people, he fled. The
Hamdani, to the surprise of all, gave quick
chase and in four hours the colt was captured
and boimd. Three hours after, the mare was
captured, and from that time the breed was
known as the Hamdani Simri, and since that
day has been the favorite over the Seglawi
Jedran.

4 — Abeyan. The Abeyan is the handsom-
est of the five breeds, but is small and has less
resemblance to the English thoroughbreds
than any of the other families. The Abeyan
Sherrak is the most esteemed of the seven
strains of the Abeyan, there being but two
others of that seven, the Abeyan Zahaine and

[262]

STATUS OF THE ARAB HORSE

the Abeyan Fadaha, which are counted "Chub-
by." The name Abeyan is derived from the
word "Aba" (cloak), and comes from the fol-
lowing incident : A certain Arab, probably of
the name of Sherrak, being pursued in war,
lost his way just as night was coming on. He
believed that his mare could run all night and
save him from his pursuers, but fearful that
his heavy Aba, or cloak, might hinder her
stride, he loosened it, and throwing it off over
his shoulders thought he noticed that during
the remainder of the night the mare ran
steadier and more smoothly. The mare easily
outstripped his pursuers, but when daylight
came Sherrak found that his cloak had not
been lost. It had been caught by the mare's
tail, which is carried higher by this breed than
in any other family of Arab horses.

5 — Hadban. There are five strains of the
Hadban family. The Hadban Enzekhi is the
favorite, and the Hadban al-Fert is the only
other that is considered "Chubby" by the
Anezeh. The Gomussa of the Sebaa Anezeh
are supposed to have the best of the breed.
Browns and dark bays are the favorite colors
of the Hadban Enzekhi, and a mare and filly

[268]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

colt twenty days old, which I bought, were the
finest specimens we saw.

Besides these five families, there are six-
teen other breeds which are counted as equal
to the Khamseh. First is the Maneghi, sup-
posed to be an offshoot of the Kehilan Ajuz.
The characteristics of this breed are marked.
They are plain and without distinction, being
somewhat coarser with longer necks, powerful
shoulders, much length, and strong but coarse
hind quarters. They are strong-boned, and
are held in high repute as war horses. There
are four families, the favorite being Maneghi
Sbeyel, which is regarded "Chubby" all over
the desert. Maneghi Hedruj, the next es-
teemed, was not counted "Chubby" at Nejd,
but was by some tribes of the northern desert.
The brown stallion "Halep," which was my
present from the Governor of Aleppo, and was
looked upon as the best stallion the Anezeh
owned, is a Maneghi Sbeyel, dark brown with-
out a white hair. His mother, his grand-
mother, his great-grandmother indeed, all his
maternal ancestors for two himdred years had
been the spectacular war mares of their time.
The other breeds are as follows:

Second — Saadan, often very beautiful

[264]

^-^- • • —

STATUS OF THE ARAB HORSE

horses, with the substrain Saadan Togan as
the most highly esteemed.

Third — Dakhman.

Fourth— Shuevman.

Fifth — Jilfan. The substrain Jilfan Stam
el Bulad is in some parts of the desert prized
equally with Hamdani Simri.

Sixth — Toessan.

Seventh — Samhan. (Substrain Samhan el
Gomussa. The horses of this family are fre-
quently very tall, and are much esteemed. )

Eighth — ^Wadnan. ( Substrain Wadna
Hursan. )

Ninth — Rishan. (Substrain Rishan Sher-
abi. Of these we saw many very beautiful
grays.)

Tenth — Tamri. (The Kehilan Tamris are
highly prized, and the bay two-year-old we
bought of this family is a picture.)

Eleventh — Meleldian.

Twelfth — Jereyban.

Thirteenth — Jeytani.

Fourteenth — Fere j an.

Fifteenth— Treyfi.

Sixteenth — Rabdan.

Besides these, there are the Kehilan Heife,
Kehilan Kroash, Kehilan al-Denais, Kehilan

[265]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

al-Nowak and the Kehilan al-Muson, or the
listening horses. This latter family descends
from a mare that, so the story goes, once stood
motionless all day in the desert, listening. The
Bedouins came aromid and looked at her with
awe. There was no question that she heard
something in the distance. They finally took
oflF her hobbles, and she ran about in circles
and then stopped and snorted. Again she
stood still and listened, first with one ear for-
ward and then with the other. They brought
a nosebag with barley and put it on her head.
From this she would take a mouthful and then
pause for a minute or two, still listening. The
Bedouins could not tell from what direction
the sound she evidently heard came from.
They thought it might be a message from
Allah.

The same night one of the most awful
massacres recorded in desert history took place,
and more than half the men of the tribes were
slaughtered. From that time the descendants
of the listening mare have been venerated.

While there are not two distinct breeds of
horses in the desert, there are, however, a first
and second class. A horse, or mare, about
whose breeding there is the slightest doubt, is

[266]

»- -

STATUS OF THE ARAB HORSE

of the second class, and is not called "Chub-
by/* Even horses taken in war, previous to
ten years ago, would not have been called
"Chubby." In all cases the breed of the colt
is that of its dam, and not of its sire. A colt
whose father is a Hamdani Simri, and whose
dam is a Seglawieh Jedranieh, would neces-
sarily be a Seglawi Jedran.

The Arab in his purity is a horse of the high-
est courage. In stature, as I have said before,
he stands fourteen hands and two inches high
and is more often a little under than over that.
He is a very perfect animal; he is not large
here and small there. There is a balance and
harmony throughout his frame not seen in any
other horse. He is the quintessence of all
good qualities in a compact form.

The beauty of his head, ears, eyes, jaw,
mouth and nostrils should be seen to be ap-
preciated. The ears are not small, but are so
perfectly shaped that they appear small. The
head is short from the eye to the muzzle and
broad and well developed above. The eye is
peculiarly soft and intelligent with a sparkle
characteristic of the breed. Yet when it lights
up with excitement it does not have the
strained wild look, and pained, staring expres-

[267]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

sion often seen in European horses. The nos-
trilsy long and puckered, are drawn back and
are capable of great distention. The neck is
a model of strength and forms a perfect arch
that matches the arch of his tail. The throat
is particularly large and well developed. It is
loose and phant when at rest, and much de-
tached from the rest of the neck. This fea-
ture is not often noticed, though it is indica-
tive not only of good wind, but of prolonged
exertion without distress, owing to the great
width between the jaws. The two great fea-
tures, possibly, that a novice would notice
quickest in the Arab horse, is the forehead, or
jibbah, which cannot be too prominent, and the
other is the tail set high and carried in an arch.
The build of the Arab is perfect. It is es-
sentially that of utility. The space for the
seat of the rider at once fixes his true position
and his weight is carried on that part of the
frame most adapted for it. If he be careful-
ly examined it will be found that all the
muscles and limbs of progression are better
placed and longer in him than in any other
horse. Nature, when she made the Arab,
made no mistake, and man has not yet been
able to spoil him.

[268]

CHAPTER XXI

VAEIOUS IMPORTATIONS OF ARAB HORSES

Many importations of Arab horses have
been made out of the desert since Darley's
came to England in 1708. Some, of course,
were not the best blood ; but, to say that there
have been no thoroughbreds brought out of
the desert, would be as preposterous a state-
ment as to say that the only known thorough-
breds of the Arab blood were to be found on
someone's private estate.

Of modem importations, I believe those of
Mr. Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt, owing to
their extensive travels in the desert, have been
as good as any. Many of their choicest mares
were purchased in towns and not in the desert,
but their knowledge of the breed is extensive
and they could not be deceived.

Many Arab horses have been brought to
America and credit must be given to the late
A. Keene Richards who, in 1855, or 1856, went

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MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

from his home in Kentucky to Palmyra, and
brought three stallions and two mares. Mr.
Richards bred his stallions extensively and one
of their get, "Sabek," was bought by Mr.
Aymar Van Buren, of Newburgh, N. Y. Mr.
Van Buren brought the half Arab to New-
burgh, where he sired a great many very fast
and tough road horses with extra endurance.

For many years in the meantime, Mr. Ran-
dolph Huntington, of Oyster Bay, had been a
student of the Arab horse. Mr. Huntington
was the breeder of Henry Clay, and still main-
tains much of that blood on his farm. His
ideas, however, were very different from those
of the majority. He believed in in-breeding,
and considered that that in itself was a test
of purity of blood. He bred his Arab mare
"Naomi," which was bred bv the Rev. F. F.
Vidal, in England, to her son, and grandson.
That cross did not strike the fancy of the
American horse-breeders, and Mr. Hunting-
ton and the horse-breeders of America have
long been at war. Indeed his efforts so far as
they were intended to demonstrate what the
Arab horse can do in America, have been a
failure.

Several horses have been imported into

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IMPORTATIONS OF ARAB HORSES

America from the Blunts. The best stallion
of the lot was a small white Dahman Shahwan,
an imported horse brought from Abbas Pasha
in Cairo by the Blunts, and sold later to Mr.
J. A. P. Ramsdell, of Newburgh, N. Y. But
after he had sired one pure Arab filly out of
the gray mare "Nedjma," of the Chicago
World's Fair importation of 1893, he died.

To the World's Columbian Exposition, at
Chicago, came several mares and stallions from
near Damascus, under a special permit of the
Sultan of Turkey. By the direction of the
Sultan, the so-called Hippodrome Company,
which imported the horses, was to return to the
desert after the fair was closed. But that was
never done. The company became entangled
in debt, and eventually the horses were sold at
public auction, most of them being bought in
by the holders of a mortgage. Previous to the
foreclosure, through a religious wrangle, nine
of the very finest horses and mares were burned
to death in an incendiary fire, together with all
their pedigrees except one. That pedigree
belonged to the finest animal of the lot, the
gray mare called "Nedjma." It was taken to
California by a young Syrian, who hoped to
get a reward for its return. The horses were

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MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

much abused by some of the Arab horse critics
in America, who claimed that ihey were tram
horses from Damascus; but as there are no
trams in Damascus, the point was not very well
taken. On the contrary I am assured on good
authority that the World's Fair horses were
of the best blood and that among them were
very fine specimens of the Hamdani Simri,
Abeyan Sherrak, Seglawi Obeira, and others
of the recognized breeds.

There is one noteworthy fact in connection
with these animals and that is that they are the
only Arab horses which ever came to America,
and won a prize in an open competition in any
class at the recognized horse shows m America.
Mr. Peter B. Bradley, of Hingham, Mass.,
who had bought nearly all of them, bred a colt
which won a prize in open competition, at Dur-
land's Horse Show, for light-weight saddle
horses. Another yearling colt bred by Mr.
Bradley and sired by "Obeyran," one of the
World's Fair stallions, out of a mustang
mare, won first prize in open competition at
the New York State Fair in 1908, beating sev^
eral of the get of the best bred trotting horses
in the country, while a bay horse, "Zedan,"
bred by Mr. Bradley, out of pure sire and dam,

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IMPORTATIONS OF ARAB HORSES

is the only Arab horse I have seen that ever
showed any real pretence toward the trotting
gait. This horse can road from twelve to fif-
teen miles an hour, and keep it up all day.
Mr. Bradley used his horses constantly ; drove
them as well as rode them, played polo on them,
and their performances have amounted to more
in the few years that he had them, than those
of all the rest of the Arabs that ever came to the
country. The other imported horses, up to
that time, and for some years later, had been
kept in their box stalls only to be admired as
idle pets.

The two stallions which were presented to
General Grant when he visited the royal stables
at Constantinople, were both grays. Mr.
Huntington had used both stallions on his
farm, after they were taken to the Genessee
Valley, and thence to Beatrice, Nebraska,
where they both died. "Leopard," a light
gray, broke his leg and had to be killed, while
"Linden Tree" lived for several years after,
dying in 1900. General Colby, who owned
them at the time of their death, crossed them
largely with western mares, and bred some
very fine colts.

Among the breeders of Arab horses in

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MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

America few have been more prominent than
Mr. J. A. P. Ramsdell of Newburgh, who
purchased the finest of the World's Fair mares
in "Nedjma." Mr. Ramsdell later bought
"Garaveen," sired by the great racing Arab,
"Kismet," out of "Cushdell Bey," the Rev.
F. F. VidaFs favorite Arab mare in England.
"Garaveen" sired some very fine types out
of the mare "Ned j ma," and also out of her
daughter by "Shahwan." "Garaveen," at the
present writing, is the only living son of the
great and unbeaten "Kismet."

For a number of years Mr. Spencer Borden,
of Fall River, Mass., bred Arabs. He had
received some mares from the Hon. Miss Dil-
lon, of England, and had bred from Mr. Hunr
tington's stallions; later, purchased from Mr.
Bush Brown, the sculptor, the Russian Arab
"Gouinad."

This horse was brought to the World's Fair
in Chicago, in 1893, in the Russian Govern-
ment exhibit, and would rate as a high-class
Arab, though not of pure blood, tracing, on
one side, to a Turkoman cross. Mr. Borden's
recent importations, however, from the Blunts,
were all very fine blood, and mostly of the
Kehilan Ajuz family.

[274]

IMPORTATIONS OF ARAB HORSES

My own importation reached America on
October 8, 1906, and consisted of ten mares
and seventeen stallions. Two of the stallions
belonged to C. A. Moore, Jr., and one to J.
H. Thompson, Jr. Another stallion which
Mr. Thompson bought in Beyrout reached
America about ten days after my importation,
and only a few days previous to the National
Horse Show in New York City. He was en-
tered by Mr. Thompson in the class for sires
of polo ponies, and in competition with seven,
won third prize. This stallion, mind you, was
competing against thoroughbreds and was at
a disadvantage, being in reality too large for
the class. He was a three-year-old bay, stand-
ing fifteen hands high.

James W. S. Langaman brought to Amer-
ica, in 1903, a golden buckskin stallion with
black mane and tail, standing fifteen hands
three inches. He came to my farm from the
steamer, arid remained there several months be-
fore being shipped to Governor Francis, in
St. Louis, at the opening of the World's Fair.
Mr. Langaman at that time returned to
Morocco and came back with six scrubs, the
rankest mongrels that ever crossed the ocean.
He purchased them at Tangiers, possibly pay-

[275]

MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE

ing $80 for the highest-priced one. He tried to
palm them off as Arab horses, and gamed a
lot of newspaper notoriety through his efforts
to present them to the President of the
United States, claiming that they had been
sent by the Sultan of Morocco. The horses
were, of course, refused, and were later sold
at a foreclosure sale at the American Horse
Exchange, where one brought the remarkable
price of $120.00, They were all foundered
and otherwise crippled.

From such specimens as these, and the big-
flanked spotted circus horses, the Arab horse
has suffered much injustice. If he recovers
from this it will have to be by his own efforts.
In exploiting the Arab horse, I shall not go
beyond their ability to carry out promises for
them.

Tamam

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